. >> so stone's former friend and comedian roger credico, he said he wanted roger credico -- he textedfriend roger credico to do in 2017 quoting president nixon. and he said stonewall it, pleaded the fifth, anything to save the plan, richard nixon. i mean nixon actually said that on the infamous watergate tapes. listen to this. >> is there any doubt, jennifer, what he wanted credico to do? >> no, not at all because all part of these back and forth over texts and e-mails is what they're talking about which is testimony and the fact congress wanted to speak to credico so there's no question at all the evidence is very strong here. they've laid it all out through the fbi agent, and now we're hearing from credico and giving his spin, so far very strong to the government. >> shimon, credico wouldn't go along with stone and texted him some ugly threats. he says you are a rat, you back stab your friends, i'm so ready, let's get it on, prepare to die. what was the reaction in the courtroom when all this was coming out? >> randy credico, we have haven't gotten to the part where he's describing

credico. for an exclusive interview. her first since the beginning of this trial. thanks for coming on the baeat. >> thanks for the opportunity to be here. >> i appreciate it. what do you think is important with your friend and ally, roger stone, a couples of days into this, as the government makes the case that he lied to congress, that he tampered with a witness, that he basically did a lot of lying about access to wikileaks in order to protect donald trump? >> i think there's a lot of things to be concerned about. from the start of the investigation, which was led by hillary clinton's personal attorney, roger wrote a book, "the clinton's war on women," they've been at a political warfare for many years, so i think that was unfair and she's probably not capable of conducting an investigation fairly. secondarily, the judge has denied his line of defense of being able to argue that there was no corrupt intent for the obstruction of justice charge. i think it's important to note that the muelle

stone texts randy credico. >> well, i've seen the other side of those text messages, and randy credicoink we need to see both sides of the communication. they were frenemies. this is something they've been for 20 years. they both since 2007 with the phony bernard spitzer telephone call, they've been at war, and then they make up and they go to lunch the next week. >> so obviously, this is coming down to -- there is obstruction witness tampering. there are several things at stake. witness tampering comes down to randy credico as well. prosecutors say stone was basically trying get credico to stonewall the house investigation when he testified to not be honest to congress. he repeatedly referenced frankie panta pantangeli, a character in godfather ii. i want to play the clip because it is very specific. here it is. >> i was in the olive oil business with his father, but that was a long time ago. that's all. look, the fbi guys, they promised me a deal. so i made up a lot of stuff about michael corleone, because that's what they wanted. but it was all lies. everything. i kept saying michae

we're going to see randy credico on the stand too in the coming days, and randy credico is going to talkwasn't your intermediary. i don't know why you're pinning this on me and the back and forth that led to and ultimately to the witness tampering charge that follows where roger stone is urging randy credico to plead the fifth. >> and briefly, who do you think is the potentially most damaging witness to stone? >> gosh, the most damaging witness to stone, i think randy credico could be someone that certainly we'll be watching. he will provide a lot of that testimony. steve bannon will be coming up in the coming days. unclear exactly how much steve bannon's going to want to say on the stand. we understand that he will be there, and he'll be talking about the communications that he had with roger stone over the course of the trump campaign. rick gates is going to be fas na nating to watch too especially given the way that other defense attorneys have tried to shred rick gates' credibility because he obviously pled guilty lying to the fbi you know, the way the paul manafort attorneys handled

and in these email exchanges, randy credico keeps saying to stone don't put me in this, i am not yourthe bus, tell the truth, tell the house intelligence committee the truth. and stone just keeps coming back with largely smart alecky responses like, hey, don't worry about it, why don't you just go out and try to sell yourself on a radio show. or he says things like you know, randy credico at one point -- i'll read from my notes -- says look, i don't want anybody to think that you and i are colluding at all. and stone says nobody cares, why don't you focus on just getting a new radio show. >> there is another text that i think that you pointed out for our team, credico emails stone you lied to the house intel committee, but you will get away with it because you are friends with trump. >> exactly. and here is what i love about that. i was going to go to that next. so all of these emails that credico is sending, stone is jumping right in, responding, responding, responding. when hhe as certificates that, you lied to the house intel committee but you'll get away with it because you are fr

randy credico. >> randy credico today tried to do a bernie sanders impersonation on the stand. >> hee ways i've always thought is why roger stone had sort of slipped out of this for a while. there's always part of stone here like, nah, you never know quite how much of this is bs and how much is real. >> this actually helps him in a perjury case. it's hard to prosecute a congenital liar for perjury. that's his defense, that he was being played, he played other people. >> this is what he does. >> exactly. but look, they've charged him with intimidating randy credico. here's an excerpt from an email. you're a rat, a stoolie, you backstab your friends. i am so ready, prepare to die this has randy stone to his associate, randy credico. they've got it in black and white on stone. this is going to be really difficult to defend. >> so ben, i want to take it to this logical end. so if one of the key witnesses for robert mueller is roger stone and they've decided he obstructed justice, they decided he lied to congressional investigators, and the government wins that case, well, then the muelle

mind you the way he tampered with randy credico was pretty serious because he said things like prepareie, go in and lie to congress and forget you know everything and if ayou don't i'm going to take your dog away from you. and i thought the really cutest line of closing arguments was he said to the jury, ladies and gentlemen, roger stone and randy credico have been tampering with each other for 20 years. that was acute lying but it didn't seem to resonate with the jury because pretty promptly the jury banged him out for seven felo felony convictions. so roger stone will be sen tnlsed in february and we'll see what judge jackson is going to do. >> all these guys, everyone around the president they really think they're tough guys. they talk like mobsters and talk like the godfather and good fellas, and this is the first time they're actually being treated like it. all of a sudden it's like, whoa, now we're actually in a federal court, now we're actually being tried and i'm not even clear what the stakes were here. it's almost like there's something compulsive about being lawless, now loo

he had communicated with credico that very day.roger stone in the end here is charged with fairly straightforward lies to congress. >> so he lied to congress to protect the president is the point that you're making. >> yes. >> let's also atalk about the accusation of the witness tampering. what does that mean for him? >> that's real trouble. a lot of the trouble he's facing is the efforts to get randy credico to change his story. if you look at the texts between the two of them, he's threatening to kill him. the threatens to kill the guy's dog. don't do that. >> he brought the dog with him to the courtroom. >> yeah. >> the dog survived. >> that's a compelling visual for the jury. but ultimately donald trump is taking on a lot of what we call collateral damage here. what we've learned for sure through the indictment and we'll flesh out through this trial is "a," people in the trump campaign asked stone to connect with wikileaks. "b," the reason -- the prosecutors said the reason roger stone lied to congress was to protect donald tru

i've interviewed both of them in reporting on this case, credico and corsi.'re saying stone was trying to make credico the fall game on something wider than him? >> yes, the patsy. and now going back to april, gates testified, roger stone was telling him in private that wikileaks had damaging information coming. he said it again in may according to gates and then in june. >> but here's the thing about that, i get why people look at this and say forget these folks or they want to think about negative things about roger stone who has invited plenty of negative portrayals. but i want to play for you right now roger stone speaking when he came out of the infamous congressional testimony, which is part of what he's on trial for saying, look, actually this stuff was false, in other words to simplify he said he was just bluffing and he didn't know as much as he claimed at the time. take a look. >> i made the case that the accusation that i knew about john podesta's e-mail hack in advance was false, that i knew about the content and source of the wikileaks disclosure

three, which was that the allegation is that roger stone falsely testified to congress that randy credicoeen between julian assange. the way the prosecutors drafted that indictment, there was one exposed by the jury because roger stone never testified randy credico was his go-between. he testified that a person i will not name was my go-between. and the problem is it wasn't until after his testimony was complete when his lawyer sent a letter saying, by the way, that go-between, that person unnamed as randy credico -- >> what's interesting as you pointed out is sometimes it's juries who are citizens who find out things and nail things and then the whole system has to adjust. we're keeping an eye on the trial. i've got to fit in a break. glenn kirschner, thanks as always. >> thank you. enn kirschner, thanks as always >> thank you now you get jeep eme pricing... as if you work here. at the jeep black friday sales event, you pay what we pay on select models... like the legendary capability of jeep renegade. the capable, compact jeep compass. and the go anywhere, do anything jeep cherokee. the

text messages that stone sent to randy credico as a role in this. cameo appearance, you might say. and what they tell us. you're on top of it. >> yeah, so the importance of these messages certainly go to the fact that roger stone was trying to, prosecutes say, intimidate randy credico. randy has been on the stand there he's back today. it's been kind of a more lighthearted at times, funny moments in the courtroom but it's very serious when you see these texts in the ways in which roger stone was trying to get randy credico to take the fifth. to stonewall. not cooperate with the same congressional invest investigators and members of congress that roger stone appeared before where he'd lie. roger stone spent time texting him, emailing him, trying to get him not to cooperate with that investigation. >> those words in that second text there, anything to save the plan. seems like he's describing a plan to lie, possibly to protect the president. we'll see how the jury and the judge view that. shimon prokupecz, thanks very much. poppy? >> all right. also an important development. the pres

that's all. >> the prosecution contends the communication meant that stone was telling credico to lieonations and stone was asking him to do an impersonation. credico said while he didn't know the genesis of stone's request, he watched the movie on the way home from london and he added i'm sure every italian i no-nos every scene from "godfather i" and ii. i'm one of them and he's one of them. if you want to see it for yourself for the first time or as a refresher, by cosmic coincidence the film is being shown this weekend as part of its 45th anniversary. now, that's an offer you can't refuse. >>> still to come, o say can you see. ♪ were so gallantly streaming >> why a chain of tv stations just playing the "national anthem" ared by some to be a partisan act. >>> and college campuses have been shutting down and challenging controversy voices. in the quest for safe spaces, is there no place? adam joins us next on a nw movie. that's next. whoo-hoo! great-tasting ensure. with nine grams of protein and twenty-seven vitamins and minerals. ensure, for strength and energy. man: how can i deliv

so at one point he texts randy credico, prepare to die.when he's asked about it by reporters he tells mother jones he was actually telling them get your affairs in order because you have terminal prostate cancer, and credico is like i don't have terminal prostate cancer. and it just seems to me that stone is playing the role of a gangster, playing the role of like a mobbed up guy but in a pretty halfhearted way that is not really fooling anyone. is that a fair characterization? >> i think that's a perfect characterization because at its core he is on trial for lying to congress. his defense to that charge is oh, yeah, i'm a great big liar but i lie to my friends and associates in my e-mails. i didn't really lie to congress. when you're on trial for lying, using the defense you're a liar is probably not the strongest defense. >> that's a great point. although maybe the one honest thing stone has ever said. glenn kirschner, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, chris. [ applause ] >>> when we get back the first election of the impeachment

you remember that witness, it's randy credico, comedian and radio host from new york.en a colorful morning, a lot of language we can't say on television, but there's been a reference to roger stone telling credico about randy five fingers from t"the godfather." he said anything to save the plan, stonewall, a reference to richard nixon, of course. a lot of serious business as well. the agent that's on the stand is testifying about the contacts that roger stone had, the numerous ways in which he was communicating with members of the trump campaign about his information, about his access to wikileaks and what he was trying to do. and, of course, we're all waiting for one of the big witnesses here, steve banbannon who prosecutors have identified to jurors as the ceo of the trump campaign, talking about emails between him and roger stone talking about wikileaks. all of that is yet to come. we don't know when steve bannon is going to appear here. he's not going voluntarily, we're told. he's been subpoenaed. >> shimon prokupecz outside the courthouse. i appreciate that report

stone told credico to act like a character in a godfather movie who lies to congress.n witnesses, former trump strategist steve bannon who stayed stone bragged about having a back channel to wikileaks. >> there really was no getting away from the fact that he did lie to congress. >> reporter: after today's verdict, president trump tweeted a list of political enemies and asked didn't they lie? he called the verdict a double standard. stone is still out on bail this morning, he'll be sentenced on february 6th and the maximum sentence is 20 years. now, as a first time offender he won't get that much. this long-time friend of president trump likely will serve some time in prison. >> pete williams, thank you. let's bring in now msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. the jury quickly decided stone was guilty on all charges. >> sometimes these cases are difficult because it's difficult to prove whether a statement was false and that it was intentionally so, but in a case like this where there's just so much evidence that the statements he gave about what he knew and when he knew

and also threatening to kill credico's dog, which is a sort of bizarre alleged episode. but perhaps the biggest name that we're expecting on the witness stand is steve bannon, the former white house adviser who was involved with the white white house -- with the website, i should say, breitbart. there is some bad blood between stone and him at this point -- stone and bannon. but in the summer of 2016 they seemed to be getting along and they exchanged a bunch of emails and bannon was keeping tabs on what stone was doing both in terms of gathering intelligence about wikileaks and perhaps trying to prod wikileaks to release information damaging to hillary clinton. the showdown between those two men sitting in the same courtroom face to face could be a pretty dramatic one. >> josh, good to see you as always. thank you for joining us. josh gerstein. >> sure, ali. >> coming up, what last night tells us about the next year. when "the 11th hour" continues. >> i just helped a lot. he picked up 19 to 20 points, a gentleman from kentucky. the problem is he was you know, not a popul

stone said he didn't have any e-mail or text exchanges with ranldy credico.vidence, they had 1,500 e-mails and text messages on the day that stone lied and said he didn't have any text or e-mail exchanges, that day he had 72. and so it's such a -- again, such a hit for the team -- for team trump. you think stone's got to be banking on a pardon. and chris, and when we look at the instrumental way president trump uses pardons for people like share arpaio, today he pardoned some military officers, the pentagon advised trump not to pardon these guys. it would send the wrong message. trump doesn't care about anybody's interests but his own. >> what would have happened quickly if he had turned against the president? supposed roger stone to save his keister had testified all he knew about trump and wikileaks and getting the hacking and dnc and hillary clinton? >> i think he could have gotten a good deal. why didn't he go for that deal? like a whole lot of people roger stone seems more afraid of donald trump than he seems of going to prison. >> either that or he trus

be a central theme, and of course, another central theme is his alleged witness tampering of randy credico by making godfather ichl i type references and you may have heard that the court denied the prosecution's bid to have godfather ii actually played in court. so the prosecution is going to have to generate that context without the help of the actual movie itself. >> so it is more painting a picture of what they have taken place, connecting the dots, versus anything actually actionable aside from what stone is being charged with. >> yes, stone is not charged with russia collusion so to speak. he's essentially charged with lying or obstructing justice about that, when asked about it. so all of that stuff is important for context. but ultimately, since president trump is not directly alleged to have been involved with a crime in connection with the collusion, the alleged collusion, on the whole, the overall effect on the impeachment inquiry may end up being minimal. >> not much. thanks, danny, appreciate it. >>> let's get a check of the weather with nbc meteorologist michelle grossman. >>

credico said he didn't take stone's threat seriously.ecution's case? >> you could argue that. you know what, it's a question of credibility. is this a witness here who's trying to protect roger stone by back pedaling a little bit and saying, yeah, he called me a rat, called me these other things, he was a little hostile, but that's how he is. in the final analysis, it's not so much how he took it. it's whether or not you had a communication with that witness, and in communicating, were you trying to alter or having them deceive members of congress? seen i don't think the import of it is so much how the witness perceived it. i think it's more what you were trying to get the witness to do. so i think it has little import at the end of the day. i think the charges to tampering is pretty strong. >> we know this could be a couple weeks' trial. you think it might be moving faster. we'll see where it goes. thank you so much, joey jackson. >>> coming up, the emergency surgery that sidelined a legendary game show host. of lan, so why haven't you

stone lied because the truth looked bad for donald trump and he was guilty of urging a radio host credico to lie about his conversations with stone about wikileaks and he told him to act like a character in a godfather movie who lies to congress among the prosecution witnesses, steve bannon who said stone bragged about having a back channel to wikileaks. >> there was no getting away from the fact that he did lie to congress. >> reporter: after today's verdict, president trump tweeted a list of political enemies and asked didn't they lie? he called the verdict a double standard. stone still out on bail the maximum is 20 years and he won't face that much but this long-time friend of president trump's likely will serve some time in prison lester >> pete, thank you. >>> breaking news from texas where a court has now blocked the execution of rodney reed just five days before he was scheduled to die ron allen has more. >> reporter: just five days ago, rodney reed's scheduled execution has been put on hold. tonight, the court of criminal appeals agreeing to a delay. reed claims he's innocent of

host here in the new york area, and the reason that is significant is that the government says randy credicoto wikileaks until much later. so that suggests, again that roger stone was deceiving a congressional committee about his contact with wikileaks. >> and what about -- this trial has been virtually a circus, i'd sake, on display there in downtown washington, d.c. he haven't heard from all the witnesses. does stone's people actually have a concrete defense or just saying prosecutors aren't proving their case? >> from a criminal defense standpoint it's a fascinating case, because the government made all of these really, really shady allegations against roger stone that he was involved with wikileaks, communicating with wikileaks, involved in connecting up and disclosing information, but yet he's not charged with a crime related to that contact with wikileaks. no espionage or hacking. no conspiracy. instead, roger stone is essentially charged with lying to congress. lying to government officials. so it can be said that all of the stuff that was the subject in the mueller investigation, all

as far as witness tampering, he repeatedly it threatened credico and his dog saying in case credico neededll a frank patangeli. it's sad because credico did not testify, he took the fifth and we're deprived of his important evidence tying the trump campaign to wikileaks. as far as his sciencentence, he eligible for up to 50 years. they will probably score him ten years because this is his first offensive. he will go to court on february 6th. that's ronald reagan's birthday, as joe probably knows. >> i didn't, but thank you. >> roger stone worked for reagan and reagan would be so disgusted by the fact that stone and some of his fellow republicans allowed russia to interfere in our elections. >> and his dog, by the way. and his dog. it reminds me of a threat made in succession since i cannot repeat since children are beginning to wake up. >> no, you cannot. >> speaking it of putting it in emails, gordon sondland actually kept a lot of trump administration officials in the loop in that whole, as i think it was john bolton called it a drug deal, drug deal to get ukraine to launch investigation

stone told credico to act like a character in "the godfather" movies to lies to congress.e becomes the sixth frum associate convicted. after the verdict president trump tweeted a list of political enemies he calls liars and calls stone's conviction an historic double standard. stone will be a free man until his sentencing in february. he could face up to 20 years in prison but as a first-time non-vie leapt offender he likely will end up with a much more lenient sentence. stone could receive a presidential pardon, something president trump has refused to rule out in the past. so far no comment from the white house on that possibility since the verdict. >> thank you. >>> jeremy bash was the former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense under president obama. he is now an nbc news national security analyst. good morning. night to see you. >> good morning. >> let's start with this week. we have three witnesses for the democrats, all respected career public service. give us the sort of takeaway at the end of the week of what we saw that was most important. >> i thi

said his intermediary was not an email guy, how many written communications did he have have credi credicol and in fact he had hundreds of emails and texts reflecting his efforts to reach out to wikileaks. it is a black and white case. >> ken, good to see you. thank you. >>> coming up next, stocks surge over a possible maybe kind of breakthrough in the u.s./china trade war. we'll break down what is going on in the new departments in that developments in that story. >>> plus will john be bol beb b testify in the impeachment hearings? fr y in the impeachment he arings fr making it easyitch and save hundreds? oh yeah, sure. um. you don't know my name, do you? (laughs nervously) of course i know your name. i just get you mixed up with the other guy. what's his name? what's your name? switch to geico®. you could save 15% or more on car insurance. could you just tell me? i want this to be over. [upbeat music] no matter how much you clean, does your house still smell stuffy? that's because your home is filled with soft surfaces that trap odors and release them back into the room. so, try febreze

that's the individual randy credico, who testified this week.lly important that he's got all these charges against him. and, again, what the government is doing is really methodically, charge by charge, each element of the crime, they are putting on witnesses to provide that evidence to the jury. >> the charges include lying to congress, and late last night -- i want to play this because you mentioned it. the doj released this audio of stone. this is in 2017, his deposition by the house intel committee. listen to this. >> so you have no e-mails to anyone concerning the allegations of hacked documents or your conversations with the guccifer 2, or any discussions you've had with third parties about julian assange? you have no e-mails, no texts, no documents whatsoever, any kind. >> that is correct. >> of that nature? >> that is correct, not to my knowledge. >> shimon, in fact prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence. tell us about it. >> yeah, they have all the e-mails, don. they have the text messages. they have the communications. this he ha

>> it's clear randy credico loved "the godfather."e is one of those people. what was surprising is randy credico's testimony as a whole. he's a comedian and sometimes the testimony went off the rails. he tried to do a bernie sanders impression on the stand. but i think he came across as a credible witness because he was able to recall dates and times things happened with almost rainman-esque precision. that will have the jury really thinking. >> i'm actually trying to figure out how the court reporter, you know, writes down in ala bernie sanders style, or something. what do you expect to happen next? >> the prosecution has said they're going to be done with their case in chief by wednesday at the latest. we'll still hear from rick gates and maybe a few other witnesses that we don't know about. and then at that point the defense will take over. they don't have to put on any witnesses. but both sides think the trial will be over by thanksgiving. >> well, we'll look for that and bring you back on when it is over. thank you so much, charl

and then randy credico who is a comedian, someone that the government has charged roger stone with tryingional testimony during the congressional investigation. that is someone that roger stone, the government said, tried to intimidate and tried to obstruct justice to get him not to cooperate so we'll hear from him. he certainly is a colorful character. so it is going to be interesting. we may hear from a manhattan madam. she's a close friend of roger stone. she had come in and testified in the grand jury. so we're going to have quite a list of characters come in and out of this courtroom in the next few days. the trial is expected to go on for about three weeks. >> okay. well, lucky you. we'll be talking a lot. day one is any indication, we'll be talking a lot. shimon prokupecz, thank you very much my friend. thank you for being with me. i'm brooke baldwin. "the lead" starts now. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapperment a and break news. an admission by a top trump aide that he told the ukrainians if they wanted $400 million in aid from the

roger stone wouldn't reveal when he kept saying i have this back channel and then he says it's randy credicoestified in the trial. but he was protecting jerome corsi and also the guy who miraculously wiped clean his computer before investigators could get at it. and he's the one who's actually in some of those critical periods in august actually having communications around getting e-mails. i say that because there was so much evidence and evidence that if you're refusing -- if you're literally lying to congress and saying i have no e-mails, i have no texts when there are e-mails and texts unless you did what corsi did which was wipe your computer -- >> it's a simple case for me knowing they're going to get the hacked information against hillary clinton they could use against her, and it cost her a number of points. there's no doubt about it, it played a role in defeating her in 2016, and now he can't admit what he was bragging about before, he was the guy getting the dirt. in his written answers to mueller, however, president trump responded he did not recall or did not recollect informatio

you know, he eventually owned up reluctantly to his contacts with randy credico, who's a new york talkt who had some ties with wikileaks. he never really admitted -- he had another reporter friend, sort of right wing conspiracy oriented writer, jerome corsi, who he'd also dispatched to london, and it seems like mueller's investigators were always a bit puzzled about why stone was being so secretive about his dealings related to wikileaks, why he seemed to be lying about some of those dealings. and they seem to have suspected maybe he had another kind of, quote, back channel to wikileaks. but it seems they were never able to really nail that down. >> roger stone trial watcher, you do it so we don't have to, thanks a lot for being here tonight. we've got one last story for you this friday night, and it is a good one. stay with us. that's next. it is a good one stay with us that's next. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting. chantix reduces the urge so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cig

the talk show host jerome corsi and -- sorry, the writer jerome corsi and the talk show hose randy credicowhich they were telling him more is coming, kryptonite for hillary clinton is coming, new document dumps are coming and, of course, in the end that did turn out to be true. what stone will say is that was just lucky guessing on all of their parts. >> and he does say at one point -- he tells bannon our friend in the embassy is going to do more and that his plan to save -- what is the plan to save trump? like, what is -- what is the grand theory that roger stone is cooking up here? >> again, it's unclear. we don't have all the details, but it seems like he's looking for dirt on hillary clinton, dirt on tony podesta. at one point one of his intermediaries tells him it's information that will make clinton look corrupt, make her look old and they should hammer on the clinton foundation and they should hammer on her age. >> wow. >> and stone himself was particularly interested in whether clinton had -- had some involvement in scuttling a peace plan in libya. that's what he was continually as

you know, he eventually owned up reluctantly to his contacts with randy credico, who's a new york talks to wikileaks. he never really admitted -- he had another reporter friend, a very conservative right wing sort of conspiracy oriented writer named jerome corsi who he had also dispatched to london to try to get information from assange at the ecuadorian embassy, and it seems mueller's investigators were always a bit puzzled about why stone was lying about some of those dealings. and they seem to have suspected that maybe he had another kind of, quote, back channel to wikileaks. but it seems like they were never able to really nail that down. >> roger stone trial watcher, you do it so we don't have to, thanks a lot for being here tonight. we've got one last story for you this friday night, and it is a good one. stay with us. that's next. performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ you have fast-acting power over

democratic e-mails by hillary clinton in her campaign, you said you had an intermediary who wasn't, credicoh showed cred co-was not in touch or seeking information up till weeks after. >> stone. >> reporter: we know the role wikileaks played in all in part of the trial, i want to mention they heard ftwo former trump campaign officials as wel, steve steve bannon amonm is a vidnd rick gates. why is the phone call key t what they're alleging. o>> stone denied trying et the wikileaks e-mails. keesident trump said he spo with stone several times in the campaign season but that he didn't recall any specifics, didn't recall speaking to them about wikileaks and didn't reca knowing about any communications that stone had with his campaign. what gates said and other evidence showed is there had been discussions sincepril about that stone had had wi the top vels in the campaign, campaign chaman paul manafort, deputy rick gates, the later on chief executive steve bannon and with the candidate themselves aped that on july 31 in the period of the democratic national convention and the time when the-mails

>> i was actually surprised in light of credico when he said he didn't believe roger was going to threadirregardless, roger, as i said before, made himself a target and he made himself a target the entire time of the election without, ari, as we know coordinating with the russians themselves. so, this is really something where, as you said earlier, this is something where is donald trump going to pardon him. i happen to believe no. but let's go back. had roger testified at congress in 2017 that he talked to the president directly about wikileaks, the president would have had a lot of problems and a lot of difficulties. >> and so -- >> and ari -- >> -- what do you think accounts -- hold one second. what do you think accounts for roger's poor choices? >> roger has undying loyalty to donald trump and office of the president as well. i think roger is someone who has a long relationship with the president. he knew and i was talking to him in 2017. it was obvious to us that the president was on the precipice, we thought, of getting removed from office. steve bannon used to tell me frequently t

then the seventh count which he was convicted on was the intimidation of randy credico, who is an importanttion. he eventually wound up cooperating with members of congress, and there are all these colorful and really o outlandish crazy texts between randy credico and roger stone and roger trying to say things to get him not to cooperate, then making a reference to "the godfather 2." all of that came out in court. wha what's going on now is prosecutors actually were asking for the judge to detain roger stone. she, we're just being told, has decided she's going to let him sit out his awaiting sentence, she's going to allow him to remain free and that he's going to be sentenced on february 6th. but i also want to make a point of something, anderson, having sat through this trial now for about a week and a half, being around the prosecutors, being around the defense team. for the defense, obviously, yesterday they were not very optimistic. they were very concerned. this morning they came in with a little more optimism. but i can tell you for the prosecutors here, some of them, one of the main

and one of the big considerations will be how the judge takes the threats to credi credico.viewed that threat, i'm going to take your dog, i'll kill you, viewed it as a violent threat he would carry out with a gun or something like that, if she views that increase sente e sentencing time. i guess about five years. >> prosecutors asked him to be locked up until sentencing. what do you think the reason the judge did not do so? >> i don't know. generally i think if a person has a conviction of seven felonies they should be locked up pending sentencing, and part of that is because i think there's, you know, there's racism in the criminal justice system, and when african-american people are i convicted of seven felonies they are locked up and i don't think it's even. >> after the announcement president trump tweeted, the now convicted roger stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. what about hillary? comey, so on and so forth? >> mueller. >> yeah. did they lie? you get a sense of pardon is in stone's future? >> well, certainly stone thinks so. but you know, you