Morning Politocadoes!

Roger Stone went to court on Wednesday. The world’s biggest Richard Nixon Stan is defendant in the last indictment to come from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office. The prosecution laid out a concise summary and opening narrative of how it was that Roger Stone came to be in this situation. It explained how all of the Trump people plotted around Russia’s hacking attempts in 2016, essentially boiling down key elements of the Mueller Reports for a jury that had not been closely paying attention.

And the prosecution wasn’t keen on keeping Trump out of it, describing Stone as a longtime friend and associate of the President. They made clear that Stone regularly updated higher-ups in the campaign like Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort and Trump himself on his activities. While describing Stone’s testimony to the House Committee, prosecutors stated that he lied because it would have made Trump look bad otherwise. While never directly accusing Trump of directing Stone to lie, they let the accusation hang in the air, introducing into evidence a list of redacted phone calls from  Trump’s home.

5 takeaways from Roger Stone’s first major day in court

Roger Stone’s openly combative and flamboyant style may also prove to be his undoing. The prosecution will also be showing Stone’s e-mails and media appearances to demonstrate his interest in Wikileaks and what sort of ‘dirt’ they had on the Democrats. Stone’s suspiciously well-timed appearances on programs like Alex Jones with talk of “October Surprises” and the like would suggest, even to the least informed juror, that Stone was well-aware of what they had and when they had it.

Whatever happens, it should prove to be a very interesting trial.

 

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