Roger Stone just stabbed Donald Trump in the back
The walls are closing in on Donald Trump as various threads of investigations into his wrongdoings unfold. It is only a matter of time now before Deutsche Bank will submit Donald Trump’s tax returns and other documents that might provide evidence of his financial crimes. The House Oversight Committee is breathing down his neck, investigating whether U.S. military expenditures have been propping up Trump’s ailing Turnberry property after a U.S. Air Force crewman had tipped them off about a highly unusual refueling stop in Glasgow that included a stay at Trump’s ritzy resort.
And then there is the long-awaited Roger Stone trial, which is set to begin in early November, and preparations are well under way. According to a Politico report from September 4, Andrew Miller – a longtime aide to Roger Stone – has lost a year-long subpoena battle that started when Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation was still ongoing. Now, Miller – who was in charge of Stone’s travel schedules and accompanied him to the 2016 Republican National Convention – will be testifying as a state witness at the trial in which Trump’s old confidant stands accused of lying to Congress about his dealings with WikiLeaks during the 2016 election campaign.
On Friday, some interesting new information came to light, suggesting that – despite the denials he made under oath to the Mueller investigation – Donald Trump may have been one of the people in the loop regarding Stone’s efforts to optimize the WikiLeaks releases after all. According to national security blogger Marcy Wheeler, a new filing was loaded to the Stone docket in which the parties in the trial released some pre-trial documents that include a stipulation for various emails and telephone numbers that will be discussed during the proceedings. The newly-released list includes the phone numbers of Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince, Jerome Corsi, Randy Credico and – here’s the kicker – four direct lines to Donald Trump plus two phone numbers belonging to Trump assistants as well as one for his loyal and trusted aide Keith Schiller.
Because this is 2019 and not the world as it used to be, all these telephone numbers appeared on the docket in unredacted form, which means that Roger Stone’s legal team effectively doxxed all the people mentioned above, including Donald Trump who is present on the list with a cell phone number, two work numbers and the number of his NYC residence. (Those numbers are not included in Marcy Wheeler’s tweet in which she reveals her findings. You can only find the list of names on her Twitter account, @emptywheel.)
We heard Michael Cohen claim earlier this year that he was present when then-candidate Trump took a call from Roger Stone that most likely had WikiLeaks as a subject, but this felt like rather flimsy proof of Trump’s involvement in the coordination attempt around the release of the hacked emails. The fact that all those phone numbers connected directly or indirectly to Donald Trump will be a matter of close scrutiny during Roger Stone’s trial suggests that there was a lot more contact between the two men and that evidence of Trump’s knowledge of the impending document dump may yet come to light.
