The DOJ’s Proud Boys criminal indictment just got a lot uglier for Roger Stone and Donald Trump
When the Department of Justice cut a cooperating plea deal on seditious conspiracy with Roger Stone’s Oath Keeper driver earlier this month, it was by far the clearest signal yet that the DOJ is indeed aiming to criminally indict the uppermost levels of Trump world. When the DOJ then turned around and indicted Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio a week later, it seemed to spell even worse news for his associate Stone. Now it’s gotten even uglier for Stone.
In a court filing yesterday, the DOJ revealed that it’s looking to indict “several” additional people in the criminal case against Tarrio. This makes it more clear than ever that Tarrio’s arrest wasn’t just a one-off, and that he was hit with conspiracy charges for a reason. By definition a criminal conspiracy takes place between two or more people, so charging one person with conspiracy means that more people are on track to be charged in that same conspiracy.
Now the DOJ is revealing that it doesn’t just intend to indict one or two more people in the Proud Boys January 6th criminal conspiracy, but several more people. This will, obviously, be an attempt at pitting a number of defendants against each other to see who flips on the others first and gets the best deal.
So now the DOJ has one confirmed Oath Keeper cooperating witness against Roger Stone, and appears on track to gain one or more Proud Boys cooperating witnesses against Stone as well. It’s not difficult to figure out the DOJ is putting the screws to Stone, so he’ll figure out he’s headed for prison, so he’ll conclude that he has no choice but to flip on Donald Trump. If Stone flips on Trump, it’ll be nearly a given that the DOJ will end up indicting Trump. That’s just how these things work.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report