Roger Stone circles the drain
Back on Thursday, Palmer Report asserted that the Trump-Russia scandal was about to land on Roger Stone’s head. Special Counsel Robert Mueller subpoenaed the social media consultant for Stone’s Super PAC, after having already hauled in several of Stone’s associates, making clear that Stone really is a primary grand jury target. Now it’s gotten even uglier for Stone.
Mueller has now issued a grand jury subpoena to a guy who served as Roger Stone’s “driver, accountant and operative” according to a new report from Reuters. Why does this matter? As we pointed out last time around, the grand jury keeps bringing in people who are closer and closer to Stone, and you can’t get much closer to Stone than his direct underlings, which means we’re near the end of this process. It’s difficult to imagine anyone much closer to Stone’s operations than the guy who drove him around and acted as his “operative,” which means the grand jury is near the finish line.
Federal grand juries issue indictments far greater than 99% of the time. Now that there’s no question this particular Mueller grand jury is targeting Roger Stone and that it’s reached the witnesses closest to him, we can expect Stone to be indicted soon. That will give Mueller the greenlight to charge and arrest Stone. From there, we’ll see if Stone cuts a plea deal against Donald Trump or decides to fight the charges at trial.
Donald Trump and Roger Stone are friends going back decades, so some are expecting Stone to try to remain as loyal to Trump as he can. On the other hand, it’s worth pointing out that Stone has survived in politics all these years, despite being involved in one shady scheme after another, and that’s probably because he knows when to cut bait. So will Stone flip on Trump? We may not have to wait long to find out.
