stone tonight? that when i sat in front of the mueller team on may 2nd, 2018, they were very, very clearly focused on collusion and conspiracy when it came to the questions regarding roger stone. and when i sat with them, it was very clear they wanted to make a case for conspiracy and collusion eventually against the president. but what i see in this indictment today is there is no collusion, no conspiracy, really, to my mind -- >> do you see attempted collusion? >> he's got two guys -- >> do you see attempted collusion? >> that will tell lies about roger stone. >> do you see attempted collusion, sir >> well, i don't know. i got to tell you, nowhere anywhere has said or believed that jerry corsi had contact with wikileaks you know, if roger was attempting to get e-mails that every reporter in the entire country was trying to get their hands on, i understand that. i mean, it makes sense -- >> right. >> -- that roger working for infowars was trying to track the story down. >> then, of course, you ment

they asked him, are you roger stone. he confirmed he was roger stone. then they took him into custody on what we now know is a hefty indictment. we were moved down the street in the middle of this. it was a dramatic and chaotic moment. we did not see the moment when he was taken into custody. we don't know what their conversation consisted of. what we did see was peaceful and calm. this happened quickly. as i said, they were prepared for something. if something were to happen. from what we saw, roger stone coming in to custody without incident this morning. >> we know he'll appear in court. first court appearance at 11:00 a.m., less than two hours from now. before you go, marty, if you can pull up the raid again. just so people can see the first moments david was there. tell us why you were there. you're based in washington. you were there. what brought you there? why were you guys there? >> this is just really good reporting from our team in d.c. that's been covering the special counsel. there was some unusual activity at the grand jury that's been emp

stone was instructed. stone was told. and if you read the context, just about the only person who could be giving those instructions is candidate donald trump. that potentially puts trump himself in the middle of this case. >> that's an important point. you have been in front of the story. if you look at this indictment, at one point it says a senior trump campaign official was directed to contact stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information might be out there to hurt the hillary clinton campaign. >> that's right. to say there was first a senior official that got in touch with stone, then a more senior official who made the direction. roger stone wasn't close with that many people in the trump campaign. certainly not that many senior people. he was close with candidate trump. sara sanders was asked about this today. here is what she said. >> you keep telling me you are clear on that. then you will not answer whether it was the president who directed a senior trump campaign official to contact ro

stone often took credit for things that stone never did., we have to say, does have that reputation. in 2015, trump did say in an interview that roger is a good guy, he has been so loyal and so wonderful. we will see whether trump feels that way after stone's legal proceedings play out. >> good point. thanks very much for that report. >>> stay with us for more on today's two major breaking stories. president trump gives in the demands of the democrats and agrees to reopen the government without any money for his border wall. his capitulation coming the same day as roger stone is indicted by the special counsel, robert mueller. ok, here's the deal. "green book" is now nominated for five academy awards. that was a good time. including... that's good. it's perfect. >>> happening now, art of the fail. president trump capitulates in his shutdown showdown with democrats agreeing to reopen the government without any funding for his border wall. his surprise retreat includes new threats. >>> mueller gets stone. roger stone is arrested in an early m

in it, the person two said his lawyer wanted to see him and stone responded quote stone wall it. please the fifthi. anything to save the plan. identifying the idea that he was trying to stall the investigation by congress. there was another text message, another one between stone and person two who he said he should do a -- this is a reference to the god father movies. another one from december 2017 in which roger stone texted person two and said if you turned over anything to the fbi, you are a fool. according to the special counsel this shows that roger stone and people he was in touch with is not identified in the court documents. >> so roger stone's attorney is now speaking out this morning. you spoke to roger stone's attorney last night. quite a turn of events. what is stone's attorney saying as opposed to what he told you last night. >> i can tell you last night when i was speaking to roger stone's attorney he felt like he would have an opportunity to turn himself in if there was ever a warrant out for his arrest if he was facing charges. he always felt like he would have a

stone is in fact mr. stone. that he's been charged in the district of columbia, the guy the judge has in front of her in florida is the right guy. and then they may set some conditions of release. bond, if you will, for him to turn himself in in d.c. or if the government argues he's a risk of flight or a danger to the community in some way, they may decide to detain him and have the u.s. marshals transport him to the district of columbia. this is going to be pretty quick and i think not all that interesting. >> ari, let's talk -- for folks again who may not be following this as closely as we are all following it here at msnbc, and certainly you, in a nutshell who is roger stone? >> rauoger stone is donald trums oldest political advisor. when donald trump was in business and there was no hint that he would seriously pursue politics, roger stone was a former nixon aid, a self-declared dirty trickster who said to donald trump you should run for president, who supported donald trump when he was flirting with the ref

stone tonight?n i sat in front of the mueller team may 2nd, 2018, they were very focused on collusion and conspiracy when it came to the questions regarding roger stone. it was clear they wanted to make a case of collusion against the president. what i see in this indictment today is, there's no collusion, no conspiracy, really, to my mind. >> you see attempted collusion? >> he's got two guys -- >> do you see attempted collusion? do you see attempted collusion, sir? >> i don't know. nowhere, anyone has said or believed that jerry had any contact with wikileaks and, you know, if roger was attempting to get e-mails that every reporter in the country was trying to get their hands on, i understand that. it makes sense that roger was trying to track the story down. >> then, of course, you mentioned person one jerry corsi and randy. roger was looking for specific e-mails to hurt clinton from a specific time. that request was submitted to a lawyer, blind copying him trying to get to assange. does that look

stone for a while now. is it clear from the roger stone indictment that someone in the trump campaign, potentially the president himself, committed a crimele? >> it will certainly looks that way. mueller went out of his way to say that stone was in touch with the trump campaign even after he left his official position in 2015 he maintained contact with the campaign someone was directed to get in touch with stone to get more information about the wiki leak dumps. it looks like somebody in the trump campaign trump himself perhaps is named in the indictment sam nunberg we've heard from they've been questioned about how frequently stone and trump communicated we've heard from the documentary makers of "get meet roger stone. that he was constantly writing memos to donald trump. they remained in touch throughout the campaign. that is significant. that many clip you played of roger stone is interesting he's saying he's totally interesting and he's going to defeat them in court he likes to attack, attack if you loo

robert mueller's prosecutors accuse roger stone to lying to congress stone said he never meant to mislead investigators. >> i will plead not guilty to these charges. i will defeat them in court. i believe this is a politically motivated investigation. >> reporter: prosecutors say stone lied to the house intelligence committee in september of 2017 about his efforts to discover more about e-mails hacked by the russians from the clinton campaign and democrats and passed along to wikileaks which made thousands of them public court documents say stone bragged to the trump campaign in the summer of 2016 that wikileaks had documents harmful to clinton's campaign. after the first set of stolen e-mails before the democratic national convention, a senior official, not named, was directed to contact stone to see what other dirt wikileaks has on the clinton campaign stone then urged a friend to get to julian assange. stone urged a radio host to find out more about what wikileaks had on clinton in october of 2016, a high ranking trump campaign official asked about the status of future wikileaks dumps

one way roger is fundraising is he is selling these stones, get it, roger stone, autographed stones? and there are two big boxes of them there in his house. and i think if you send him ten bucks he'll send you a roger stone. >> are those bringing in a lot t of money? a lot of funds? >> it's hard to sell that many stones. but it gives you some idea of sort of how roger operates. i mean, you know, and, you know, i hope i don't get in trouble for saying this, but, you know, there is a likeable rogue aspect to roger stone. >> we got to good to break here, they're going to cut my head off if i ask you one more question. but i am bog to sneak one last question in. >> give us all a stone. >> will supporters look through this and say, okay, seven counts here but he's not charged with collusion or conspiracy? is that argument available here? >> yes, actually. i think people will say this is yet another -- this is a term i just heard process crime, that it is -- it is lying to mueller but it is not the underlying offense of colluding with russia. now, you're not in great shape if you are parsi

roger stone. now you see he's coming out. he's the gray-haired man, white-haired man in the blue shirt. if the camera pulls out, you can see attorneys and others around him. there's roger stone, if they pan back to him, he was doing basically a richard nixon big victory signature, arms swept wide there, for a moment. he came to light originally, of course, on the national stage as a young richard nixon aide, especially in the 1972 campaign, which eventually led to, memorably, the watergate charges. we'll see whether he comes to the microphone. first he's going to be introduced by his attorney, i think. let's listen. can we say, this is a media circus that only roger stone could properly appreciate. >> quiet, quiet! whoa, whoa! mr. stone is going to speak. he speaks for himself. you know that roger stone has always spoken for himself. he's never been shy about telling his story. he is innocent. we're going to defend this case and we're going to win this case. but let me start out by saying that the

who is rogger stone? roger stone who like trump -- it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that he is now indicted. he's known for dirty tricks and a lifetime of this shtick has finally caught up with him. >> the special counsel indictment and the arrest of roger stone. we'll be right back on "morning joe." k on "morning joe. i hear it in the background and she's watching too, saying [indistinct conversation] [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪ i have... ♪ i can't tell you anything about myself. i have... but believe me... i'm not your average consumer. that's why i switched to liberty mutual. they customized my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. and as a man... uh... or a woman... with very specific needs that i can't tell you about- say cheese. mr. landry? oh no. hi mr. landry! liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ welcome to fowler, indiana. one of the windiest places in america. and home to three bp wind fa

stone said he can prove this.after the july 22, 2016 release of stolen dnc e-mails by organization i -- that's wikileaks -- a senior trump campaign official was directed to contact stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information organization 1 had regarding the clinton campaign. stone thereaftertold the trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by organization 1. nick valencia is live outside the courthouse. we're waiting for roger stone when he comes out. take us inside those proceedings. >> reporter: it was a packed courtroom, no doubt about that, john. a few reporters were not allowed in. civilians were not allowed in as well, and there's roger stone. his hands resting in front of him, shackles around his waist, around his ankles and he looked very tired. he was wearing glasses, but as the judge started to read the charges he was facing, he removed those glasses and was very serious, very polite with the judge while she asked if he understood those charges. he w

on the link between stone and the trump campaign. stone has denied connections, right. during the summer of 2016, stone spoke to senior campaign officials about wikileaks and information it might have had that would be damaging to the clinton campaign. stone was contacted by senior campaign officials to inquire about future releases p s by wikileaks. based on this indictment, julia, it sounds like the campaign was actively looking for information from wikileaks, from roger stone. >> that's what it looks like. as you can see from the posturing from the white house already, they're distancing themselves from roger stone. but baked into this indictment are details that would counter that argument. not only was he in touch once, he was in touch multiple times. and he was told to stay in contact about future coordination. as we know, robert mueller's office has made the connections between wikileaks and the russian government in their coordination to get those e-mails from the democratic national committee that would be so damaging to hillary clinton. i want to dig into that

today of course it is stone with wikileaks. before it was stone -- cohen with the moscow tower. something i foebsed on. follow the money question. then we have paul manafort who is indicted in a effect for trying to make polling data available to a russian spy. anybody who's been through elebzs like senators know you really guard polling data. you give out polling data if you're trying to influence an election. what these folks were doing was colluding with the russians. >> i guess the question is in term oz of publicly known facts. they were colluding with the russians in trueing to cover it up or this is an incredibly bumbleing group of almost congenitally criminal individuals who just lie and cover up as a matter of course, even when they don't have a crime to cover up. does that second one seem plausible to you? >> my sense is that as you look back at these events, the trump organization is right at the center of this. so there is a lot more to come. one of the things we're going to ask about on the intelligence committee and this is a public matter, not classified. who is t

stone? >> they are false and i will be completely vindicated. >> reporter: what was it like when the fbi showed up? >> not surprising. >> reporter: the indictment said that you were coordinating with senior trump officials, campaign officials. who are the officials? >> false. >> reporter: no indication on who those officials were, mr. stone? >> they don't exist. >> reporter: anything you'd like to say to clear the record? >> i think i've been pretty clear on this. tune in to the shows tonight and you'll see. i support the president. >> reporter: you heard him there, brianna. i asked him who these unnamed senior trump officials, senior trump campaign officials were unnamed in the indictment, and he says they don't exist. he seemed to be in incredibly good spirits considering the seriousness surrounding him, it is charges that he's facing. we saw him as he left the courthouse throwing a victory sign and being incredibly defiant as he made a statement to the press. brianna? >> nick, thank you f

roger stone's indictment.es it get us any closer to answering the question whether the trump campaign clued with wikileaks or russia? >> i think it does. in that it begins to show us a little bit of what robert mueller is thinking. you know, you were right to single out that line about that he was directed, that the trump campaign official was directed to contact roger stone, which gives some sense of robert mueller understanding the internal decision making and has evidence of the internal decision making of the trump campaign during this time window. and it is really notable that, you know, indictment after indictment, court filing after court filing bob mueller continues to show us the what without necessarily telling us the why. and you have to think that he is withholding the why, the motive, for a reason. as phil mud was sort of saying earlier, that there is a lot more to come when you begin to sort of read between the lines of what mueller knows and isn't telling us. >> juliet, you are shaking your head

roger stone. he was in federal court this morning, remember, on a multi-charge indictment. our phil keating is in that melee that you see with all of the reporters there, in fort lauderdale, florida, with all this. bill, i don't know if you can hear this, but i want to hear from you momentarily and we will come back to you for a full report after whoever ends up speaking. >> it's going to be roger stone. >> harris: well, that's definitive. thank you. [laughter] >> it's going to be him, yeah. >> harris: if that's the only thing you say, that was important. perfect. [laughter] >> it's a roger stone spectacle. he's coming. >> harris: what happened in court? >> at 11:00, one hour ago, roger stone arrived with two of his attorneys for his first court appearance after being indicted by that d.c. federal grand jury on seven counts. these are those counts. five counts of making false statements, one count of obstruction, and one count of tampering with a witness. earlier this morning, at around 8:30, the

stone do not allege that mr.his lack of contacts with julian assange but rather about his contacts with others and about documents reflecting those communications. and goes on to say, that the office of the special counsel has never spoke within mr. assange. ana, as for assange, he is now well into his seventh year of being confined or perhaps confining himself to the ecuadorian embassy and that looks set to continue, because the british police say they will arrest him if he emerges from there. and a sang still believes that if that happens, he is going to be extradited to the united states. >> all right, phil black in london for us, thank you. >>> coming up, the crisis in venezuela, the international community taking sides, and two men each claim they are the rightful president. hey, darryl! hey, thomas. if you were choosing a network, would you want the one the experts at rootmetrics say is number one in the nation? sure, they probably know what they're talking about. or the one that j.d. power says is highest

stone tonight? i sat in front of the mueller team, they were very clearly focused on collusion and conspiracy when it came to the questions regarding roger stone. and when i sat with him it was clear they want today make a case for conspiracy and collusion eventually against the president. but what i see in this indictment today is there is no collusion, no conspiracy really in my mind and he has two guys -- >> do you see attempted collusion? >> do you see attempted collusion, sir >> i don't know. nowhere that anyone has said or believed that coursey had any contact at all with wikileaks. and if roger was attempting to get e-mails and ere reporter was trying to get their hands on them, i understand that. it makes sense that roger who is working for infowars was trying to track the story down. >> then you mentioned personal one, jerry corsi, but person two, it says that roger was looking for specific e-mails, from clinton at specific times, and it was submitted to lawyer, blind copying to him does th

what was the second -- you said during your 40 hours it was roger stone, roger stone, roger stone. what was the second name that was most common you were talking about? >> well really i think roger stone in terms of a name. >> sure, sure, sure. the reason i ask is then the official transcripts were requested by the mueller team from at least in this case for roger stone and then here he is indicted i want to know what was the second most -- >> there were other issues they wanted to cover but the focus was on roger stone and then of course julian assange and wikileaks. and the last 20 hours, if you read "silent no more", it is detailed and that is accurate with what is said in the indictment it was about any possible contact i might have had in 2016 that could be information about julian assange and i couldn't find any. >> some have been critical of what is in this indictment and said, well, this so much as gives us a summary of an individual that acted like a traitor. what would you be your reaction to those criticisms of who roger stone might be based on this particular -- >> trai

at stone's home in florida. meanwhile on the same day roger stone was being booked in federal cork, shackled the at his wrists and ankles, trump's former campaign chairman turned convicted felon paul manafort appeared in court for a hearing in which muller team prosecutors told the judge manafort should not, not get credit for cooperating, which will be a factor in his sentencing roger stone is now the sixth trump associate to be indicted or convicted predictably today the white house claimed roger stone, one of the president's oldest friends and advisers has absolutely nothing to do with donald trump >> roger's, you know, relationship with trump has been so interconnected that it's hard to define what's roger and what's donald, but it will be clearly a trump presidency i think it's influenced by stone philosophy >> joining us now is craig ungar, author of "house of trump: house of putin, the untold story of donald trump and the russian mafia" and back with us, tim o'brien. craig, i'm going to start with you on

credit to stone.hn mentioned earlier, that in july a senior trump official was directed to contact stone about information about releases and dumps from wikileaks. >> to me, i think the timeline here has shifted to june and july all of the sudden and contacts now on paper between the trump campaign and roger stone about wikileaks. and, garrett, just giant step back here. roger stone is someone who has been associated and friends with donald trump for a long time. they've had a long relationship. roger stone is someone who talked to donald trump regularly during the campaign. i had corey lewandowski on set tell me so much that it would drive him crazy, it would make him nuts when donald trump then the candidate was on the phone with roger stone. he is now under arrest by the special counsel added to the president's campaign chair, add it to the pre's one-time lawyer and fixer, add it to the president's national security adviser. this is a big list and i'm leaving people out. >> absolutely. and i think,

roger stone did say, yeah, i'm roger stone. then he was taken into custody and charged. >> what happened? could you see roger stone's demeanor? could you see any sort of negotiations happening between the agents and roger stone as to if they were going to let him get dressed, if he was going in handcuffs, anything like that? >> reporter: it was a wild scene. it happened quickly. when the agents fanned across the lawn they were moving slowly, but urgently. when stone came down, within moments it was cordial almost. they had a discussion. then, in fact, we were moved down the street. the agents came across the street while it was happening and moved us. we were unable to see the whole interaction. we know roger stone is no longer here on this street in ft. lauderdale where he lives with his wife. he was gone within maybe 30 minutes. so depending on if that was a discussion or him getting dressed, we are unclear at this moment. roger stone was discussing apparently what was happening to him this morning which was he was being arre

stone?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. >> 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 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 hope

stone and president trump have been friends since the 1980s when stone first encouraged trump to run for president. >> trump is someone through the '80s who took enormous risks and succeeded. >> as exploerd in the documentary, get me roger stone. stone once again expressed his loyalty to trump. >> 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. >> reporter: wikileaks was not a minor player in the russian election. u.s. intelligence described it as working with them. in april of next year, they sid it is time to call wikileaks out what it is, often abetted by state actors, it is wikileaks, roger stone and a friend was communicating with and repeatedly, that is a part of the significance of this indictment. jim scuitto, cnn, walk. >> to put all of this into focus, let's bring in harry litman, a contributor at the washington post. joining us via skype, thanks for your time. >> thanks for having me. >> so after making a statement today when you will test courthouse, roger stone spoke t

if you go to roger stone's fundraising websites one question is who framed roger stone? roger stone framed roger stone because there are his text messages. there are his e-mails. the investigators have a lot of proof to back up these allegations, these seven counts that he is charged with. at some point he will have to treat these extremely seriously. his legal team certainly does. he has lawyers that came up from florida that had a bit of a delay of getting waved in. they are treating this extremely seriously because there is a lot of evidence that is stacked up against him. while roger i think you will hear when he comes out of court will try to minimize and try to create a circus atmosphere around this, i think this judge, she will treat this extremely seriously. she is not going to put up with a lot of the circus atmosphere that he likes to create. >> when it comes to -- i'm hearing word from inside the court that roger stone's attorney has officially pled not guilty on his behalf. the judge can tell roger stone to stop talking, right? >> yes. definitely. >> i wonder

all these sort of names surrounding stone because they were focussed very early on stone. they focussed in on him. they grabbed him. and, you know, there is some controversy about the early morning raid. that's a tough call for a prosecutor. you can either go in at 6:00 a.m. or you can arrange a surrender, and i think mueller's team calculated he's not to be trusted. he's a danger to flee or get rid of evidence. you need to have a little bit of an element of surprise so there cannot be december direction of evidence. mueller understands people will complain about that and see it as heavy handed. >> there had to be the intent to lie. here he is last night here on cnn defending himself. >> where is the russian collusion, chris? where is the wikileaks collaboration? where is the evidence that i received anything from wikileaks or julian assange and passed it on to donald trump or the trump campaign? it simply does not exist. >> the point of collusion, is he wrong? >> well, he's right in the sense that there is no substantive charge there about him actually taking a step in fu

stone inside.re are no cameras inside that courtroom, so we won't physically be watching this live as it happens. our teams are there and will be reporting back when this begins. look aga looking at my clock in five minutes from now. clint, thank you for rolling with this wild hour of news. can you talk about what you expect to see coming up in a few minutes in ft. lauderdale. >> it will be interesting because i've already seen the statements from stone's lawyers and his team. you basically heard those for the last year and a half. where they deny anything's even happened and that, you know, this is all just part of the witch hunt. but the facts today are very different. we have the text messages. so when you look at that, if roger stone couldn't remember things, that was some of the -- >> right. >> allusion of i couldn't remember. it's his text messages. if you're going to court, you might want to read your own things you've written before you show up in a courthouse or you show up to testify to a

one of the perplexing pieces of the stone indictment for me was trying to understand why stone would have pressured randy so desperately including the threats to his dog to get him to con seem the interaction that stone had with jerome corsi. we may see the explanation here. if stone was working with corsi to arrange for the release of wikileaks documents in an effort to blunt some of the impact of the access hollywood tape, that would explain why he tried to get him to put himself forward as the source of the interaction, and we could be in conspiracy territory if there were folks inside of the campaign involved in that. i think this was a damaging admission. it's the reason why criminal folks who are subjects in criminal cases shouldn't go out on national television. >> let me pull -- okay. i don't know that's going to happen, but let me talk more broadly about the russia investigation. we heard something overnight or late last night from the acting attorney general. here's what he said about the idea that robert mueller might be almost done. i want to play this and bring in somebo

or the person who directed them to contact stone.ere's what told reporters after his appearance in shackles before a florida court today. >> after a two-year inquisition the charges today relate in no way to russian collusion, wikileaks collaboration or any other illegal act in connection with the 2016 campaign. at the crack of dawn, 29 fbi agents arrived at my home with 17 vehicles with their lights flashing. when they could can simply have contacted my attorneys and i would have been more than willing to surrender voluntarily. as i have said previously there is no circumstance whatsoever under which i will bear false witness against the president, nor will i makeup lies to ease the pressure on myself. >> joining me is texas democratic congressman a member of the house intelligence committee, former federal prosecutor kirschner and senior vice president for social justice and legal analyst danny. tell us how this gheets heart, i believe it does, of the russia probe. >> you look at all the conduct that roger stone isn't actually char

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. >> right? he

it's very clear roger stone was that direct link, that roger stone was working the campaign, roger stone was working wickey leaks for information and that senior level people knew about this, were asking him to do more and who was directing the senior campaign person? we don't knothat. and i think it's a good point you make, that who could be higher than this senior level person? we don't yet know. there's been a lot of questions about whether trump campaign knew, had a heads up on these emails. how much did they know and i think this indictment answers that question quite clearly. >> john, listen, no one wants that knock at anytime, especially in the middle of the night or early morning. what do you think is going through roger stone's head when that happens? >> i suspect he was pretty shocked. and i suspect his dogs are pretty shocked too from what i pick up from today's news. you know, i don't like the see law enforcement embarrass potential defendants that are charged and i don't that was the reason for this but it had that impact and what they did is apparently do a full search of t

roger stone has no friends. his m.o. has always been to have enemies and use them against one another. no one's coming to save roger stone. >> sarah sanders has said adamantly that these charges, this indictment has nothing to do with the president. is that how you see it, van? >> no, i don't. and the president's behavior lets you know that there's something wrong here. if you've ever seen a guilty person, they act just like this, they're upset about everything, looking behind every corner, change their story every 15 seconds. they're trying to acquit this person, that's how guilty people act in the 'hood, and that's how the guilty person is acting in the white house. it's that more fan anything else, he cannot stop the tell. it's a tell about the way the president is behaving. what in particular he's trying to cover up or he's worried about, that remains to be seen. but there's something going on here. >> i would just say. i don't think we have to rush to indict or implicate the president, that will bare out. anyone oth

stone was not a campaign aide or adviser.here in the presidential daily diaries from '72 to '74 does the name roger stone appear okay, thank you, nixon foundation, message received about the current president as stone tells it, the loyalty is strong let's talk about that tonight. with us, man wall freud returns to the broadcast also returning, carol lenning, pulitzer prize winner also with "the washington post." carol, we get it thank you, nixon foundation, for the unambiguous message. when you look back on this piece in november. i'm about to quote you to you. a lot of people learned what they know about the relationship when you wrote this november of last year. the calls almost always came deep into the night. caller i.d. labeled them unknown, but roger stone said he knew to pick up quickly during those hairied months of the campaign there was a good chance the voice would belong to his friend, the restless, insomniac candidate donald trump dialing from a blocked phone number. carol, what else should we know about this rel

credico, corsi, and stone. stone and corsi have repeatedly told reporters they make stuff up and sort of admitted to their own dishonesty. how on earth do you make a case around these characters? >> well, the key always for a prosecutor when you have witnesses who have shown in the past they're willing to not be truthful about things is you have to corroborate, you have to corroborate with documents and with other testimony and sometimes you can actually have a consensus of information around a certain fact by a number of witnesses, all of whom have not been entirely truthful, but they agree upon one point. sometimes that can be enough. >> all right. the quote from "the washington post" about a particular associate of roger stone named andrew miller, and it says that mueller continues to be interested in hearing from stone aide andrew miller who is fighting grand jury subpoena, indicating the special counsel could be pursuing additional criminal charges against stone or others related to the release of hacked m

but i think the important piece here is who is roger stone roger stone is one of the closest confidants of donald trump. their relationship goes back 40 years, and he along with paul manafort and michael cohen, kind of the three stooges and close to the president, have all been implemented for certain crimes they probably know him better than his wife does here's what paul manafort said about roger stone. he said, quote, roger's relationship with trump has been so interconnected that it's hard to define what's roger and what's donald. and boy, that's devastating for trump because it suggests that trump himself is the object. and then the second thing is, what was stone's reaction? as a lawyer, i was shocked to see him go out on tv tonight, including a program i was on, and say all kinds of stuff normally a client would never do that he only has one audience it's not the court, it's not mueller, it's not the public opinion, it's one person, donald trump. he is seeking a pardon that's what this strategy is all about and it must be nice, it must be nice to have donald trump on your side i

what roger stone said about being infamous rather than not famous at all. that's what i can see richard nixon saying that's something i can imagine richard nixon himself saying if he were as outrages a character as roger stone "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> disturbing that the special counsel's office released a press release prior to informing -- >> roger stone's time in the barrel >> oh, my god, i'm busted. >> as the trump shutdown finally ends >> we do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shining sea. >> tonight for the first time, the special counsel links the trump campaign to wikileaks. >> i love reading those wikileaks. >> roger stone charged with seven counts. >> well, roger is a good guy and a patriot. >> plus what it all means for the president. >> russia, if you're listening >> and all the president's men and it was a shutdown inspired by steve king, ann coulter and trump tv enabled by mitch mcconnell, executed by president donald trump >> i am proud to shut down the government >> the political fallout begins as the t

searching stone's home in florida. >> stone vowed to fight the charges against him.t is to seek out stolen democratic e-mails that could damage hillary clinton's campaign and he bragged about his contacts with wikileaks founder. >> i have communicated. >> according to the indictment he spoke to campaign officials about wikileaks. it would be damaging to the clinton campaign. a senior official was directed to contact stone about any additional releases. at least one was steve bannon. >> stone was not charged with conspiracy. he faces one count of obstruction and five counts of making false statements. both welatrelated to his allege lies. >> his testimony would be immaterial and without intend. >> he also faces one count of trying to tamper with testimony from new york radio host. at one point even threatening to steal his dog. stone has claimed he was the back channel to wikileaks. according to the indictment stone told him stone wall it, plead the fifth, anything to save the plan. a long time political operative stone encouraged trump to run for president and served

he said stone claimed to have advanced knowledge of the stone tape and if you have a way to get him to start dropping, him to start dumping and then we get him on the back side trying to cover up and lie about it before congress but the actual thing in the middle, which is was there actual back channel. what do you think of that missing parts? >> for example there's no explicit reference to ted malic nigel furaugs. i've shown the themes corsi and stone were pushing in august particularly an argument about podesta. so you would think -- the evidence is there to suggest that's where they're going maybe that's what they spent hours looking for. i am -- one of the points i made later in the day is roger stone was willing to go to great lengths to set up these cover stories, inside cover stories. what he didn't do was delete these texts. so this guy who has spent his entire life doing cover ups, didn't do -- soys there probably more in his home now in the fbi's possession >> we have michael cohen who's pleaded to lying to congress, also campaign finance violation he says was directed by the

stone plays. and i think viewer, some viewers remember that from the rules he's played in decades past. then there is the trump version of it. if you're saying, gosh, it feels like we're at a circus, it's because, well, we bought a circus ticket and there are elephants everywhere, and you have animal cruelty concerns as well, elephants or randy credico's dog, take your pick. that's what "saturday night live" was spoofing and stone responding to this on his emethod of choice, which is instagram. yes, the joke side and the question how much of it is just a circus joke, or was it a kind of ridiculous cover for very real attempts to get a foreign power's help to take out aspects of hillary clinton's candidacy. here was "snl" on this weekend. >> what a fun couple of days. i'm loving the ride. go, nixon! >> mr. stone, you had a harrowing past 36 hours. your home was raided. you were arrested and charged with seven felony count, including lying to congress. >> it was four counts. >> the indictment says s

we have looked at the indictment of roger stone and roger stone has defended himself by saying i'm not being accused of collusion or conspiracy which would be the crime that would cover that. are there reasons why robert mueller would not include such charges at this stage, even if he intends to go that way later? >> absolutely. and to be clear, as, you know, i've said elsewhere, i don't know that there will be further conspiracy charges. just the fact that it has not been included here does not mean that stone should sit comfortably that they're not coming. here's a couple of reasons why i think, strategic reasons why mueller may not have included conspiracy charges against stone, even if he could. first and foremost are the search warrants that were executed the same day as stone's arrest. very often prosecutors will choose a more straightforward smaller charge, if you will, like obstruction here, a fraud charge, when they have that evidence. it's easier to prove. this is actually a very complex written indictment. a lot was laid out. but the charge itself and the proof is overwhelmi

stone is 66 years old.e is so broke from mueller-related legal expenses that he can't afford health insurance. he is hardly a flight risk. but, no. that's not what they did. instead the feds went with automatic weapons and a cameraman from cnn. you don't need to be a roger stone partisan, a fan to see that there is something wrong with what happened this morning. the most powerful person in america is now an unelected prosecutor with no functional oversight over what he does. robert mueller commands in effect his own domestic army. you just saw them. can he use it however he likes and he does. mueller crushes people when it's not even necessary to do it. weak people mostly. and he does it in ways that are clearly designed to send a political message. that is not how democracies are supposed to work. and you would think our media would be bothered by this. reporters are not supposed to side with prosecutors who abuse their power or anyone else who abuses power. they are supposed to hold the powerful to accou

but the important piece is who is roger stone roger stone is one of the closest confidantes of donaldeir relationship goes back 40 years and he works along with paul manafort and michael cohen, the three stooges all close to the president. now all of them have been implicated in all sorts of crimes, accused formally and some of them have pled guilty to crimes these three people know the president as well as anyone. they probably know him better than his wife does, which may not be saying that much. but that demonstrates how close this is to the president here's what paul manafort said about roger stone. he said, quote, roger's relationship with trump has been so interconnected that it's hard to define what's roger and what's donald. boy, that's devastating for trump because it suggests that trump himself is the object. and then the second thing is, what was stone's reaction. as a lawyer, i was shocked to see him go out on tv tonight, including a program i was on, and say all kinds of stuff normally a client would never do that but i think here there's one reason for it, which is he on

what stone lied about. again, with all the other peep in this scandal, we have seen them again and again and again in their security clearance applications risking prison time to tell lies about things that do not seem to be crimes. things that on the surface don't seem like they need to be lied about. in this case in this new indictment, what roger stone is alleged to have lied about under oath, threatened this witness that he needed to lie about it too or not testify if he couldn't commit to not lying about it, what he's accused of, the big lie at the heart of the stone indictment, is something really, really small and specific what is spelled out in the indictment today is that roger stone appears to have concocted a cover story which says the way he tried to get information through wikileaks was through this guy, a guy roger stone knew, a guy who had a radio show on which he interviewed julian assange from wikileaks stone thought he could be a good contact. if a guy would interview him he could reach hi

what roger stone said about being infamous rather than not famous at all.ng i can imagine richard nixon himself saying if he were as outrages a character as roger stone "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> disturbing that the special counsel's office released a press release prior to informing -- >> roger stone's time in the barrel >> oh, my god, i'm busted. >> as the trump shutdown finally ends >> we do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shining sea. >> tonight for the first time, the special counsel links the trump campaign to wikileaks. >> i love reading those wikileaks. >> roger stone charged with seven counts. >> well, roger is a good guy and a t.

stone claimed that was his back channel to wikileaks, which he denies. stone said stone wall it. plead the fifth. anything to save the plan. amid references to richard nixon and "godfather" movies. stone urged trump to run for president. as the white house made this claim -- >> nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the white house. >> reporter: friday, stone doubled down on the loyalty pledge. >> there is no circumstance, whatsoever, under which i will bear false witness against the president. >> sarah murray, cnn, washington. >> let's bring in harry litman, a former u.s. attorney and contributor to "the washington post" joining us this hour. thank you for your time. >> thanks for having me. >> after making a statement today, roger stone spoke to my colleague chris cuomo moe today. he's not known for being shy or speaking out on camera. he explained to chris how he feels about the charges he faces. let's listen. >> first of all, i said there could be some process. >> yes. >> there's still no evidence, whatsoever i had advanced knowledge of the topic, s

in that he had to answer about his contacts with stone and what he told stone. what we see today is mueller's understanding of what event. the real question is, did the president's answers line up with how mueller sees this played down? and obviously mueller knows, he has the answers. we don't have the answers yet. but it was a key question that mueller wanted answered and one that the president actually filled in the answers to. >> joyce vance, let me ask you to broaden the lens a little bit on what mueller is doing. it would seem he's already charged the russian crime. he's charged over the summer 13 russians tied to russian intelligence services with meddling in our elections. we know vladimir putin's direction it was done to help donald trump, and people like yourself and chuck rosenberg have been explaining to people like me that what the open questions are is whether we can connect a dot to that crime, that conspiracy, to anyone in trump's orbit. it would seem that today we have documentation that the federal government believes there at a minimum coordina