don't miss full circle on facebook. you have to vote for some of the stories that we cover. it's on every night at 6:25 p.m. eastern every weekday night at facebook.com/anderson cooper full circle. that's it for us. hope you have a great weekend. the news continues, though. i want to hand it over to chris for cuomo primetime. "prime time". >> thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo and this is "prime time". the central crime that launched the russia investigation is linked to the trump campaign. that link is roger stone. robert mueller believes he has tied him to the dnc e-mails stolen by the russians and dumped by wikileaks and they do seem in this indictment to have a ton of evidence that there may have been lies told to congress by stone. stone says they have got nothing and he is here to tell you that directly. the indictment is also a window into the campaign and multiple

parties that may have made efforts to coordinate with stone's efforts. here are big questions. who are the officials that stone talked to. who was the senior official that he interacted with and most importantly, who was the person that directed that senior official to go to stone for help about what else he has to damage hillary clinton. cuomo's court will deliver over those questions. the white house insists the charges of the president's associates have nothing to do with him. how is that possible? the two men the president has known the best and the longest, stone and manafort taking risks, alleged committing crimes, supposedly on his behalf and he didn't know? my argument on that is ahead. it's a huge night. so let's get after it. i have to say, when indicted most people become a ghost. you're lucky if you hear from their lawyer, but roger stone is not most people.

he has decided not only to enter the safe space of the mothership at fox tonight but he's also willing to come here. obviously his lawyers aren't going to want him to discuss the details of the case, we know that, but there's plenty to get into on the merits. roger stone, thank you for taking this opportunity, especially on a day like this. >> after that last panel i feel some need to defend myself. john dean a man i exposed as a perjurier and liar. comparing his testimony to special prosecutors in the book. preet, who lied to a federal judge about leaking federal grand jury information calls me a liar, please and the subject of my next book, fake news -- >> let's not deal with trading barbs and allegations. >> they beat me up pretty good.

i deserve the opportunity. >> that's why you're here tonight. i want you to have an opportunity to address what matters. the panel is not on my show and they're not here to defend themselves either. so let's move forward. you told me in the past, i do expect that the probe is going to expose me to some type of action at some point but you never expected what happened at your home this morning. tell me about that. >> first of all, i always said there could be some process crime. there's still no evidence whatsoever that i had advanced knowledge of the topic and subject. or the source. i never received any of the wikileaks disclosures. i never communitied with wikileaks. on the other hand, i don't have a valid passport, either that or it's about to expire in the next few days. i have no previous record. i do not own a firearm, i am not

violent and there was no need to have 29 fbi agents with assault weapons and hand grenades to smash in my front door. they could have called my attorney and i would have surrendered voluntarily. my wife is deaf. she was in the upstairs bedroom. i had a concern that she did not know what was going on and could be shot or injured. my dogs are not dangerous. they're tiny, although they were terrorized. so when you don't have evidence, you use theatrics. it was an overreaction and the real proof of it is the judge only hours later gave me a $250,000 surety bond on my own signature. if you're a flight risk, they wouldn't have done that. >> he didn't have to give you any bond, but when you say there's no proof. i don't want to dig into the

merits. i know the legal council you have been given and i understand it. i'm surprised they have you out at all. when you say they have no proof, i have not seen an indictment connected to this probe that has more proof than this one does of communication that prove you didn't tell the truth to the congress. the congressional panel you were before. >> false, if you go to my website and watch my interviews i have refuted virtually everything in there and then there's a bunch of things in there that i don't believe are true. no senior campaign official told me to find out anything about wick leek. there will be no corroboration for it and no other person in the campaign that's a junior official inquiry of what happened. what i did hear from steve bannon.

after a press event on october is 1. responded to two public records. he said is there would be releases for the following weeks. and the u.s. related campaign elect or election related material would be released in the weeks before the election. >> >> just to be clear and allow you to respond what's in the indictment, if you're comfortable doing so, you're saying the only communication you ever had with anybody related to the campaign was the one communication that you're saying is already published. >> it was published by the time and i responded to it in great written detail. my response to him is public information. >> and that was the only communication? >> that's the only one that i recall. the only one that i can find in my e-mails. i never discussed this with donald trump. so speculation tonight by wolf

blitzer and others that trump directed me to do this or directed someone to direct me to do this, speculation in the washington post that i ever discussed this, chuck todd asked me about this on meet the press a year ago and i told him no. >> that's still your answer. >> it's still my answer. >> so there's a 100% chance in your mind that nobody can offer any compelling credible proof that donald trump knew about your efforts to get to wikileaks? >> nobody can supply any corroborated truth. people can have their testimony composed, particularly if they're looking for a reduction in their sentence but there is no proof here. many of the things in this indictment i already addressed and rebutted in great document and detail. i have a pretty good idea, even though i have 1 million e-mails and i never deleted anything

whatsoever but the idea that they need evidence, they have been in my e-mail and text messages and phone calls for two years and read them to my associates before the grand jury, the new york times reported on january 20th that i was under surveillance. >> but that's why i'm wondering you denied any of these things. you had to know they surveilled you and when asking you said i had never communicated with them. and didn't you know they would be monitoring your communications, and they'd get you the way that they did? >> here's the irony of that. the text messages that were an old cell phone are exculpatory. they prove he was my source and he denies, and that his source is a wikileaks lawyer. i did honestly forget a series of text messages that prove that i was telling the truth. >> but even the ones you were having during the testimony, the

same day? that really jumps the shark. they're saying have you ever spoken to him about it? you were talking that day. you say, no -- i don't want to dig into the facts with you because i respect you and your council. >> first of all, i don't know if that's true, but he is an impressionist. that's what he does and he does a very funny imitation. certainly not an implication that he should kill himself or that he should lie. >> but you did tell him he shouldn't testify, he should plead the fifth. don't turn anything over to them. that's why they're coming after you for tampering. >> context. all of those text messages need to be seen in some context and when they're seen in context, they're light hearted and they're not serious. >> the only other thing that was a bright line distinction is they were asking you, who was talking to you? who was helping you?

why didn't you want to mention corsi? why did you only want to mention it? because everything in the indictment is true, but why didn't you want to mention him? you would have saved yourself a lot of trouble. >> first of all, he said a number of things that weren't true. a memo that he prepared for me regarding the business dealings suggests it's part of a cover up. covering up what? he never told me that the e-mails had been stolen. there's no corroboration or evidence in writing that proves that. that comes from his memory. he told tucker carlson that and many people. he told everyone he knew. he certainly didn't tell me and there's no proof that he did. >> but you do have the communication between the two of you. mueller seems to have proof. >> you know, in all honesty, i don't believe he was ever in touch with wikileaks and the prognostications he made regarding wikileaks on august 2nd all turn out to be incorrect.

i don't he had any idea what he was talking about. >> and he was not a campaign official. so they're trying to criminalize legitimate journalistic or political inquiry? i don't think that's reasonable. >> they're getting you for lying about it. they're not saying that the actions were criminal, they're saying that you lied about it to congress and they have the proof on paper. forget about the merits, why put yourself out there like this roger. you had a chance to change the testimony. why would you even talk to them in the first place and put yourself in this jeopardy? >> as you know, perjury requires materiality and intent. there is none. but secondarily, where's the russian collusion? where is the wikileaks collaboration? where's the evidence that i received anything from wikileaks and passed it on to donald trump or the trump campaign? it simply does not exist. >> i agree with you on those basis.

i keep qualifying this. i want to keep my word. i want to keep my word and i told you and council that i wouldn't dig into the merits on this but the argument would be the coordination is you're trying to find out what's happening and you're telling the campaign so that they could go ordinate their message to syncronize what they were saying. as the wikileaks got dumped. trying to find dirt on hillary clinton. to help your friend in the campaign. that might not be a crime, maybe, maybe not, but it is collusion. >> i wasn't doing that. i will prove that at trial. >> you said a couple of things already that are important to people. you didn't talk to the president about it and you don't believe he knew anything about it. address people's skepticism. he has known you the longest he has the deepest relationship with you, second only to paul manafort in terms of the population of this campaign that

you introduced him to and you suggested him once again to help with the campaign. why would people believe that his oldest most trusted adviser was doing something like this for him at the same time that he kept talking up wikileaks and yet he knew nothing about it. >> first of all, he can read and watch television and any this was getting coverage. any suggestion that we did discuss it would be conjecture, would be supposition. there's no evidence to that. first of all, and when you talk to him on it, he talks and you listen. we just never discussed this topic and there's been a great effort. i have seen it here on cnn to conflate the e-mails which are the clinton missing e-mails. two completely different things.

>> what was in there that might be of value to the campaign. and i'm just saying it's going to be hard for people to believe the man that knew you best and longest and trusted you the most wouldn't have known what you were doing on his own behalf. you say you would not testify against the president, you would not bare false witness. interesting phrase. and you are open to telling the truth, and is there any chance that the truth you have to tell could compromise other people that are part of the campaign? >> certainly not the president. i have no information. >> anybody? >> i have to know what the circumstances would be. it's highly unlikely. first of all, this idea that i was in regular contact with the campaign after paul manafort left is not true. frankly, i didn't have a high regard for many of the people working there. the people in the grass roots,

yes, but the people in washington, many of them had no idea what they were doing and they were not close associates of mine. so this idea that i was trying to curry favor with them. i have no reason to do so. i have a relationship with the president of 40 years. that's a misnomer. there's a new york times story to that effect. trying to burnish my reputation with the campaign. that was completely unnecessary and false. >> agreed. i'm saying any contact and you brought up paul manafort, did you have any idea that he had given poll data to one of his friends and he met with another guy so closely connected to russia about u.s. policy? >> no, i never heard of that guy, whatever -- i have seen his name in the paper. i was not familiar with him prior to the recent stories. and your second question -- >> that he also had a secondary meeting with somebody where they discussed u.s. policy visa vi

russia and ukraine and that was period similar to how it had been changed. were you aware manafort was doing any of that. >> no. >> this is a ballsy move you're taking here. coming on and taking on these charges, once you have been indicted, especially with what i read in this indictment, it makes me think you must believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel. you believe that light is not the train but it is the president and he will pardon you for keeping your mouth shut. >> i've never had any discussion with him or communication with him regarding that. i have no idea what he might do. the only persons that i have recommended a pardon for is i wrote a number of op-eds as to why i think julian assange should be pardoned because i believe he is a journalist and i who does the same thing the "new york times" and "washington post" do. have come out strongly and written one for marcus.

>> would you accept one? would you accept one? >> i don't expect to be convicted, so i'm not going to address it. i don't address hypothetical questions, as you know. >> would you entertain cutting a deal or anything short of going to trial on these charges. >> again, you're asking me to answer a hypothetical question without knowing any of the facts. i know that i am innocent. my intention is to plead not guilty and to fight the charges and i have had no discussion with anyone regarding a pardon. >> you've never been in this situation before. >> you have been in a lot of jams over the years but not like this. are you worried this isn't going to go your way? >> i believe in god. i know what i have and have not done. i have a great wife and family that support me. i have to raise $2 million through -- because i'm not a wealthy man and the legal expenses so far

have been very damaging and very devastating, plus the censorship of my radio show on info wars. the censorship of my facebook page has made the selling of my books more difficult. so i have to raise a lot of money to defend myself. this is very typical. we saw this with general mike flynn where the legal expenses are such that you end up pleading guilty to a crime that you did not commit. i don't intend to do that. >> he admitted to lying about a couple of different material matters, but i take your point and i really appreciate you on a night like tonight doing something very atypical. coming out and addressing the charges and the indictment against you, and i appreciate that. >> well, i was up a little earlier this morning than i had planned. >> so i hear. >> i could use a good night's sleep. >> thank you very much. we have someone that knows you very well, kristen davis coming on the show to talk about what this means to you in her opinion as well. there was roger stone. there you see kristen davis. she worked with roger stone.

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ask her if we can do her next wedding too! -so we'll design the insurance solution that fits your business. -on second thought, don't...ask that. >> all right, so look this was a very big day concerning roger stone. his home in florida wasn't the only one the fbi searched. agents also showed up at the duplex he shares with my next guest. kristen davis once testified before mueller's grand jury. welcome back to primetime. this is not what you want to be doing right now, but you want to support your friend. how concerned are you? >> i mean, i am concerned. they obviously indicted him already and he's been arrested. i'm also concerned because i watch cnn all day long and everyone had an opinion but no one knows roger personally and most of their opinions are based on their own agenda so i think we should put some things in context. >> like. >> first of all, randy, for example -- >> person number 2 in the indictment. >> person number 2, we all know that, they're frenimes.

they had a horrible off and on relationship for 20 plus years. they threaten each other all the time and then the next month they're going out to dinner so a lot of these things are taken out of context. randy has personally threatened stone on many occasions. they got into a fistfight in 2010 on one of my campaign events. instigated by randy. so i think people are seeing he threatened him, no, no, what he said was i'm going to take your dog because randy doesn't treat his dog well and stone is an animal advocate. so everyone wants to make him out to be this awful guy based on his public image but that's just who he is -- >> you don't believe roger ever intended to threaten him not to testify. >> no behind the scenes roger is telling him tell the truth and that's where you see him actually threatening him like you sold your friends out. why aren't you telling the truth? why are you telling them you're not the intermediary?

i'm the one that testified to the special counsel, that randy credico was the intermediary and two weeks later he was subpoenaed. i have known this since 2016. since before it was an issue. >> why do you think roger went before the congressional committee in the first place? he could have pled the fifth. >> i think he felt like it was his duty. he has been destroyed in the press. he's been under constant surveillance, or at least he believes to be, and he thought that by going there and giving his side, that it would somehow alleviate the pressure of everything that's going on. >> rudy giuliani talks about this idea of a perjury trap. perjury trap is where they only bring you in to prove that you're lying because they have you already. not for legitimate investigative purposes. i'm not saying that's what this was, but roger had to know they were asking him such specific questions two and three times. did you ever talk to this person? are you sure you never talked to this person, and there was enough information that they had

to know they had his communications. i don't get where his head was on that. do you? >> roger stone gets roughly a thousand e-mails today. >> so you really think he might not recall. >> i really think. as someone that's testified in front of the special counsel, i don't recall half of what they asked me. it's a stressful setting. you don't have any attorney present. your adrenaline is flowing and you just zone out, so you remember 50%. so could i remember everything they asked me? no. i would answer a question conclusively yes or no because that's not safe. >> you were part of this, not only did you speak to mueller but you got the fbi calling you early this morning also, a little bit of irony. it was an fbi guy that you have been in contact with in the past about a case you were part of, what was that about? >> the way it was presented to me, they called me about 6:15. we're at your door, please get ready and make yourself presentable. we have a search warrant to execute.

it was the officer that arrested me in 2013. he said i have been sent. i don't know anything about this but i have been sent because you know i treated you kindly in the past and you have a young child. we want to treat you kindly now. >> didn't you move? >> i moved. so there's no joint duplex anymore. >> so did they search the right place? >> roger stone doesn't have a apartment anymore. a new york apartment. >> so they searched your apartment. >> no, they searched the remnants of the apartment that we had that's being liquidated to storage. >> did you go to see what they would take? >> no, most of the stuff was already out of there. it's already in a storage spot or being moved to a storage spot. >> so you don't know what they got or whether there was anything to be had. >> i don't particularly want to talk into a place where the fbi is. that's not my list of priorities. >> fair point. so here's two big questions. two big questions. first one will be easier for you.

what is the chance that roger stone realizes these guys aren't messing around, this isn't a pr campaign, that this morning he got a taste of what kind of power these men and women have and once his lawyers process what's in this indictment and see that this is a hard case he's facing objectively, do you think he would cut a deal? >> no. roger stone is one of the most resilient men i have ever met. he manages to take a horrible situation and turn it around and i have seen it all the time. so i never doubt him anymore. so don't count him out. there's a lot of legitimacy in the fact that he's a 66-year-old man and forgetful and people should understand he's also a human being and being in a stressful situation, even such as this, you forget, you don't say what you want to say, you're not articulate and he testified in front of the senate i can't

-- by himself. no attorney present. for hours. expect any normal person would remember what they said. >> he was in front of the house committee and that got him in trouble. one other thing, the hard thing for me to accept is that roger stone who has known the president longer than anybody involved in that campaign has believed in him as a presidential contender longer than anybody has including the president himself. he has gone out of his way to do these things. he's taken efforts and all over the place and contacting all the different people and the man he is doing it for has no idea. do you find that hard to believe? that doesn't expose roger stone by the way, i'm not talking about him and his exposure. do you believe he would be doing all of this and trump would know nothing about it or do you think that's protective roger stone. >> i think what we know about trump as a president is he does what he wants when he wants and he doesn't answer to anyone so that's probably also how he ran his campaign is that when roger says when trump calls he talks and you listen and maybe provide a little bit of advice and

that's how he is as a human being. >> roger said i will not bear false witness but he can tell the truth. you know that old expression, in this the truth may set him free. in terms of what the case could mean to him. kristen davis, i appreciate your perspective once again on this matter. thank you very much. >> thanks, chris. >> all right. so look. there is a big question tonight and you just heard me talking to kristen davis about it. we know what the investigators believe roger stone was doing. but he was doing it for someone else. he was doing it for donald trump. maybe not directly the suggestion is that the president didn't know. but that's the key question. that's something we have done with people that have done these cases many, many times. cuomo's court is in session, next. wouldn't it be great to have epix?

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>> thank the lord, good news, the government shutdown is over for now. but for the families that have been hung out to dry, this is good news. president trump signed a continuing resolution that provides funding until february 15th. after that, we don't know what is going to happen. the president threatened another shutdown among other options. it's hard to believe that the pain that he must now know for sure exists in a shutdown would be repeated. but the longest shutdown in american history without any funding for president trump's border call comes to an end. we will stay on the story to see when people get paid back and to make sure that they get back on their feet. back to the big story, the latest trump associate charged by bob mueller defended his innocence here on primetime tonight, the same day he got indicted. cuomo's court by the case. good to have all three of you.

so i start with you, roger stone says i don't recall, i didn't do it, they can't prove it. >> mueller can definitely prove it. that's why he put it in the indictment. he has the receipts and the evidence to back it up. so i think that roger stone might be in a certain amount of denial if he believes that that can't be substantiated with evidence. i also want to point out that stone tried to suggest he had no direct contact with russia or anyone from russia. you have to read this indictment along side the indictment that mueller filed against the intelligence officers for the hack of the dnc server and in paragraph 44 of the indictment, there's a person, a person who was in regular contact with senior members of

the trump campaign who was in contact with him doing the hack and then passing it to wikileaks. guccifer 2.0. so i think that that would be a good question to ask if there's another opportunity because it's pretty clear that that person in that indictment is roger stone. so there was definitely a direct link. >> no, i remember that. interesting, though, didn't come up in this indictment. interesting. you know, mueller has this -- neil, mueller has this pattern of not always going as far as he can with these people for the first time and that could be part of a strategy, but there's no mention in this indictment of guccifer. and i remember when we all thought it had to be roger stone. i'm struck by the defiance of what seems to obvious in this document. what would be stone's play here? >> he likes dogs or something like that.

but it's remarkable that he would come on tv with such a brasen defense. as a lawyer, i always worry about any criminal defendant being on tv. carter page for example and the like. i don't worry about it here and do you want to know why? because i think actually his audience is not the court. it's not mueller. it's not even the american public. it's one person. it's donald trump and what's going on is roger stone is following the president's december invitation and seeking a pardon. this is a president that pardoned arpiao and the stone appearance here tonight on your show is the stench of a pardon. that's what is going on and we should make no mistake about it. this isn't some guy that's trying to defend himself. he's defending one person, donald trump. >> the stench of a pardon. poetry to prose. >> jim schultz, let's go from poetry to prose. do you think the president would consider pardoning mr. stone?

>> i have no idea whether the president would consider pardoning roger stone and certainly his lawyers are going to advise him at this point in time that that's not a wise thing to be talking about at this point in time, especially in advance of the mueller report coming out. so hopefully we won't hear anything like that from the president. >> do you think he can pardon him, jim? >> he has the ability to. if he so chooses. >> can he pardon somebody to keep that person from incriminating him? >> i don't think you'll see anything where you'll see any movement toward a pardon in this matter. this thing would have to be done and finished and long over before any of that considered. i would imagine. >> >> i agree with that. >> you're going to pardon stone because he won't testify against you even though to use neil's phrase, the stench of

communications, the idea that trump's longest time adviser and friend is doing all of this stuff on his behalf at the same time that trump is saying to the world that he loves wikileaks and he hopes there's more and trump didn't know a thing about it. what are the chances? >> it would be a little counter productive for the president to pardon him because if he pardons stone, then stone no longer has criminal liability for the actions that he has done. which means he cannot claim the fifth in terms of if mueller wants him to talk or if congress subpoenaed him again to come in, but what was really interesting to me, chris, listening to this as a former investigator, your question to him was, do you think the president will pardon you? and stone's answer was, i mean, we didn't have any discussions about it. it's not like we have discussed it or anything and he mentioned like having some kind of discussion like five times and

maybe that's just where his mind goes, but i have to say, like, when people volunteer an answer, which is not actually the question that you asked them in a certain amount of specificity my antenna goes up. >> neil. >> i 100% agree. i'm not saying the pardon is going to happen now. there's only one reason he would be on your show tonight which is ultimately to demonstrate and go through trial and look, if he believes all of the stuff that he just said which seems like nonsense when you read page 16 and other pages of the indictment which are detailed allegations against him. but if he believes all of that, he's going to have to take the stand and do it. there's only one way he would take the stand and lie like that after he has already lied and that's because he's confident at the end of the day there's going to be a pardon. mueller is too careful and too consciousness a prosecutor to have the indictment that was listed today unless he knew he could back it up and there's e-mail after e-mail, text message after text message, it is devastating. >> jim, do you see it the same

way. >> there's some real problems here on paper as it relates to this indictment for roger stone without question that he talks about context and other things. no doubt about that. but here we have -- do not underestimate roger's love of the limelight here. he walks out with his hands in the air. signaling like nixon did. he loves the limelight. he loves being the object of this attention. he loves being on television. so to say that he's just going on here to get a pardon from the president that he's known for 40 years, not something he needs to do on television if he so chooses to do it. to say that's the only reason he's out is underestimating his love of the limelight. >> i'm reading the tweet that the president himself issued in december which was effectively roger stay firm and, you know, other people are rats and

they're not going to get pardons but someone like you is. so he's just following the president's lead here which i found very, very damaging to the rule of law back in december. >> her point is smarter than where my head was on it about whether or not he would be able -- the pardon would be seen as a self-pardon effectively because he was rewarding this guy for not going against him but what it would expose stone to is a great point. it certainly works against a pardon, but there's something else he said that i thought was interesting. he said if you were to tell the truth, he said i will not bear false witness, very biblical, but will you tell the truth? yes, i'll always tell the truth. is there anything that you'd say that is truthful that would effect anyone else in the campaign. he said, not the president. that's something at play here too. he was talking to officials mueller believes he can show and that is collusion.

if they were working through stone to try to find out what russia was going to put through wikileaks because they were told in july to be careful about russian interference efforts and what they were doing online, and they're trying to get it and coordinate campaign message with what they think is coming from wikileaks, that's a problem, isn't it? >> it is a total problem, and i'm so glad that you brought that up, chris. the fbi gave this campaign a security briefing in late july, early august, 2016, telling them, guess what, the russians are trying to interfere in this election. they may reach out to contact you and if they do, please let us know. that's what the fbi does. and then this is happening -- there have been contacts before that they don't report and then this goes on after. so i just want to add on the point about roger stone and potential contacts. directly with guccifer. i think the problem when you

have a counter intelligence investigation that converges into a criminal one is that you may not want things that you have gleaned from confidential classified sources like allies giving us intelligence to show up in a criminal indictment which then needs to be disclosed publicly. so that could be a reason that some of those pieces did not show up here, they showed up in the other indictment because mueller done expect the gru officers to show up in court and actually challenge it, but here he does have that possibility. >> also a better point than i had in my head. >> let me ask you this, before i let you guys go, who thinks that stone cuts a deal? nobody. all of you think he rides this out on the basis of what's in this indictment. >> i think he cuts a deal with the president, absolutely. and he defends himself at trial and loses and ultimately gets pardoned but this is a remarkable indictment. we end where you began. this is someone very close to

the president for 40 years. he knows the president better than anyone. better than his wife. that's not saying much. there is something really, really significant about today's developments. >> final thoughts. >> let's not forget, i think there's an interesting point to be made here that there is some indication that the clinton campaign was reaching out and trying to stop all of this from coming out as well and reaching out to folks in order to stop it. these are political campaigns. they're looking for dirt on one another. they're trying to use dirt against one another. >> there's a difference between trying to find wikileaks -- to give you e-mails russians stole. >> let me finish, chris. >> i don't like false equivalencies. >> there's been no evidence so far that anybody from the trump campaign had contact with the russians relative to the intrusion into the dnc servers. the hacking and stealing. >> but his oldest and most trusted adviser was trying to get an answer -- it's not about a crime, it's about collusion --

and wrong doing. >> there was nothing relating to the dissemination of it either. but you're right, chris, as it relates to hey, when is this going to happen, is there going to be something, can we get a heads up? those things were seemingly going on according to this indictment, but there's no indication that they were involved in the theft, there's no indication that they were involved in the public dissemination. this was all in the public domain. >> that's a legal standard. >> and then folks started asking questions. >> that's a legal standard for a felony. this is going to be a political process. >> agreed 100%. >> who did what and what the president knew and when. >> no question. >> and you don't have to have a crime for an impeachable offense. it's whatever congress says it is. guys, you made us better tonight. this is why i have smarter people on this show as guests. thanks to each and all of you. a lot of this is about how you want to see things when you look through the lenses of this. that's true of the mueller probe from the beginning but there's some things that you can look at

in the indictment today and what roger stone told us and it creates provocative thoughts for what happens, next. carl, i as my broker...invite here. what am i paying you to manage my money? it's racquetball time. ♪ carl, does your firm offer a satisfaction guarantee? like schwab does. guarantee? ♪ carl, can you remind me what you've invested my money in. it's complicated. are you asking enough questions about how your wealth is being managed? if not, talk to schwab. a modern approach to wealth management.

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i got to tell you, this is a tough one to figure out. you do not see people in roger stone's position going on television, let alone the day they are indicted. so what does that mean? does it mean what we're hearing speculated on by those brilliant lawyers that he just loves the limelight? he loves it. he wants to put himself out there. this is his moment, or does it mean that he doesn't get what he's up against? d. lemon, come on in here and help me have some perspective. >> it could be both. >> it could be both.

could be both. >> could be both. >> here's why i don't get it. here's just one paragraph from the indictment, okay? and they only need one lie to get you, okay? written communications between stone and person one, jerome corsi, and person two, randy credico, continued through his testimony. indeed, on about september 26th, 2017, the day that stone testified before the committee and denied ever having sent or received e-mails or text messages from person two, credico, stone and person two, credico, exchanged over 30 text messages. on the day i asked if you've ever talked to someone and you told me you didn't, you talked to them 30 times. they got you right there. i don't get his play here. help me. >> well, i can't help you. i mean it's -- i'm flummoxed by it. to me, it's a big deal because we learned that senior campaign officials reached out to stone about wikileaks. that's a big deal. >> who directed that senior official? >> who directed that? as far as roger stone, he says there are no charges of collusion. of course not right now, but mueller -- >> there's collusion. collusion is not a crime.

it's a behavior. what manafort did was collusion if true. oh, is that him doing the peace sign? >> this is a long time ago. this is a long time ago. this is when he was kicked off of twitter for saying disparaging homophobic things about me, also about jake tapper and other folks. >> he is capable of incredible ugliness. >> yeah. >> he'll call himself a street fighter. he can explain it any way he want. >> he lives a couple blocks away from me by the way. did you know that? >> i don't know if he does anymore. kristin davis said they got rid of that duplex they used to have. >> up in harlem? >> but he's never been a fool. it makes me wonder if he hasn't playing the long game of hoping the president saves him. that's more complicated than you think even at this point. >> you don't know because, listen, i'm not saying it was. but what if the senior -- who is the senior official? what if the senior official was the guy, right? >> the president? no. the president would have to be the person who directed that person. if he fits into the equation at all, that would be how. but let's pick it up at the top

of the show. >> okay. but just so you know, one count of obstruction, two to six counts of false statement. >> seven counts. two of them are about him messing with credico in the process. five are lies. i'll see you right at the top. >> director clapper will be on. >> oh, clapper. great guest. all right. so what did the president know? that's the question. and what you've heard every time with manafort and now with stone, this has nothing to do with him. he doesn't know what those guys are doing. i'm going to remind you of the defense that's been offered, and then we're going to blow it to pieces with nothing but the truth. next. hi, i need help getting an appointment with my podiatrist. how's wednesday at 2? i can't. dog agility. tuesday at 11? nope. robot cage match. how about the 28th at 3? done. with unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans, including the only plans with the aarp name, there's so much to take advantage of. from scheduling appointments to finding specialists, it's easier to get the care you need when you need it.

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this idea that the president didn't really talk to stone?

he was irrelevant. manafort? only with the campaign for a minute. never that close to the president. all bologna. the president has known these two longer than anyone in that campaign, including some of his kids. stone met trump through his infamous lawyer, roy cohn, in the late '70s. stone always supported trump as a political contender. listen to potus himself. >> there was a poll that came out that donald trump would be a great president, that a lot of people liked it. and all of a sudden, everybody said i was running for president. i never said i was running for president as you know. >> but you hired roger stone, a well known political consultant. >> no, i didn't hire. roger's a friend of mine. he's a good guy, and he looked at the possibility of it. >> "roger's a friend of mine." the president met manafort, who was partners with stone, through stone in the '80s. manafort then became part of this tight circle. >> roger's, you know, relationship with trump has been interconnected that it's hard to define what's roger and what's donald.

while it will be clearly a trump presidency, i think it's influenced by a stone philosophy. >> the three amigos. the idea that trump wasn't close, didn't know, wasn't aware of anything about who these guys were, what they're capable of, it all strains credulity. so what? well, did the president know what stone was up to with wikileaks and with his campaign? did he know what manafort was doing, meeting and giving proprietary poll data to his russia-connected buddies allegedly? we need to know if the president was capable of allowing or even enabling such wrongful behavior, or reverse it. how could he not know? the president's older adviser is doing this kind of stuff that the president is talking about all the times. wikileaks, wikileaks. yet he knew nothing of stone's efforts to contact wiki on his behalf? manafort comes in to save the convention, winds up being the face and central point of the campaign, and yet the president

doesn't know what he's doing? and if he did know and lied to you about it, you know what? that may not be a crime. but it is a really big breach of public trust, and one that may incite a popular call for political action. is it impeachable? look, it doesn't have to be a crime to be impeachable. it is whatever congress says it is. and we've never had a sitting president stand accused of seeking to coordinate or exploit the efforts of a foreign power, let alone an inimical one, let alone russia in their attempts to interfere in an election, let alone efforts that were meant to be to his benefit in his election.

this is serious stuff. for now, it comes down to the three amigos. almost 40 years of wheeling and dealing that got them where they always dreamed of being, the white house. how did they do it, and what role did the president play? in fact, it may come down to just one of the amigos, stone. he left something out today in his bravado moment. i want you to listen to this. >> there is no circumstance whatsoever under which i will bear false witness against the president, nor will i make up lies to ease the pressure on myself. >> roger stone is clever. who said he has to lie? who said he has to bear false witness? he just has to tell the truth. now, he struggled with that according to the indictment. but if he's staring at prison time -- and this indictment is about as damning as we've seen in this probe so far -- will he tell the truth to investigators even if it compromises people in the campaign, even if it reveals something about the president of the united states? we need to know, especially now in one of darkest moments of our democracy. "cnn tonight" picks up the coverage with d. lemon. >> you know who else said the false thing? he didn't say i will not bear false witness, but that he wouldn't flip on the president? >> moses? >> no. michael cohen. >> yes.