Roger Stone Found Guilty of Lying to Congress, Witness Tampering
Lobbyist and political strategist Roger Stone was convicted on Friday of lying to Congress and obstructing the House’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
He was also charged with attempting to block testimony from another prospective witness, The New York Times reported.
Stone was found guilty on all seven counts he faced.
The longtime Republican consultant had testified before the House Intelligence Committee during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation into Russian election interference.
Serving as an unofficial adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Stone had sought to acquire emails hacked and leaked from the Democratic National Committee and later released by Wikileaks.
Stone told congressional investigators that he had communicated with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange through radio host Randy Credico.
According to The Times, a lot of the trial concerned Stone’s varied attempts to prevent Credico from testifying before Congress.
At one point, Stone instructed Credico to “stonewall” the investigation and “plead the Fifth.”
He also threatened Credico that he would retaliate against him were the radio host to testify.
Additionally, Stone had told the Intelligence Committee that he had had no electronic communication with Credico, when, in fact, the two had exchanged hundreds of emails and texts.
Credico never ended up testifying and indeed invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
During the trial, Stone’s lawyers argued that the question of whether Stone lied about his campaign to obtain Wikileaks emails was insignificant, as that pursuit proved fruitless, The Washington Post reported.
“There was nothing illegal about the campaign being interested in information that WikiLeaks was going to be sending out,” defense attorney Bruce Rogow said.
Prosecutors, in turn, argued that Stone’s obstruction of the congressional hearings was an attempt to protect Trump and his campaign.
Among the seven charges against Stone, the two most serious are obstruction of justice and witness tampering, according to The Times. Each carries a maximum 20-year sentence.
The president was among those to react to the verdict on Twitter.
So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
“So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come,” Trump wrote.
“Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?”
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