Roger Stone melts down during disastrous court hearing
Roger Stone appeared in court today to answer for his decision to post a picture of the judge handling his case with crosshairs just above her photo. This action was stupid considering this judge has the power to make him await his trial in jail instead of being released and waiting for the trial as a free man.
While various reporters were tweeting Stone’s statements while he was on the witness stand, the thing that really stood out to me was what a terrible witness Stone was. Not only was he not credible, he ended up making contradictory statements, and making things worse for himself.
In the bigger picture of the Robert Mueller investigation, it is stunning that Roger Stone is not one of Donald Trump’s least intelligent friends. In fact, Roger Stone is one of Donald Trump’s more intelligent and more successful friends; the rest of them are even dumber. Most of the characters deeply involved in the Trump-Russia scandal have behaved in surprisingly stupid ways. Donald Trump’s kids, Michael Cohen, and Paul Manafort have all shown themselves to be shockingly inept.
Remember the way Manafort responded when a reporter asked him a simple and to-be-expected question? CBS’s Norah O’Donnell asked Manafort, if Trump had any “financial relationships” with Russian oligarchs. “So to be clear,” asked O’Donnell, “Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs?” Manafort answered, “That’s what he said, that’s what I said, that’s obviously what the… what our position is.”
How about this one? Remember Donald Trump Jr’s “If it’s what you say I love it” email? In that email exchange, Don Jr had everything to lose including his freedom. Still, it was his Russian contact who finally told Don Jr they shouldn’t be emailing about the meeting.
The examples of stunning stupidity go on and on. Boy did John Oliver get it right when he called the Russia scandal, “stupid Watergate.” With all we already know about the evidence Robert Mueller has, and with this group of stunningly stupid characters, we have to believe that Robert Mueller is way ahead of all of them!
Cheryl Kelley lives in the DC area with her husband and young son. She is active in government and politics.