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Mueller’s latest move is very bad news for Roger Stone

The special counsel subpoenaed Stone's backchannel to WikiLeaks.

CREDIT: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
CREDIT: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

CNN broke news on Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed a New York radio personality named Randy Credico who served as a conduit between Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Credico’s attorney, Martin Stolar, told CNN that Mueller’s team “probably want[s] to talk to [Credico] about Roger Stone and Julian Assange.” CNN reports that Credico has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury next month.

News of Credico’s subpoena is an ominous development for Stone, who recently admitted he is the unnamed “U.S. person” mentioned in Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents for hacking into Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

As ThinkProgress detailed in May, emails obtained by the Wall Street Journal indicate Stone offered — at best — misleading testimony to Congress about his communications with Credico regarding Assange, whose website orchestrated a pro-Trump propaganda campaign throughout the summer and fall of 2016.

In a message sent on September 18, 2016, Stone wrote to Credico, who had interviewed Assange several weeks earlier, and asked him to “Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30–particularly on August 20, 2011.”

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That email indicates Stone sought help coordinating with a website which Trump’s own intelligence chiefs have accused of serving as a cutout for the Kremlin. The email also directly contradicts Stone’s September 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that he “merely wanted confirmation” from Credico that Assange had information about Clinton. It also contradicts statements Stone has made on his Facebook page and website about how his communications with Credico about Wikileaks just “asked Randy to confirm that the Australian journalist had credible information on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

The Journal’s report detailed Credico’s response, which suggests he asked Assange for favors on Stone’s behalf on previous occasions (emphasis added — typos in the original):

Mr. Credico initially responded to Mr. Stone that what he was requesting would be on WikiLeaks’ website if it existed, according to an email reviewed by the Journal. Mr. Stone, the emails show, replied: “Why do we assume WikiLeaks has released everything they have ???”

In another email, Mr. Credico then asked Mr. Stone to give him a “little bit of time,” saying he thought Mr. Assange might appear on his radio show the next day. A few hours later, Mr. Credico wrote: “That batch probably coming out in the next drop…I can’t ask them favors every other day .I asked one of his lawyers…they have major legal headaches riggt now..relax.”

About two weeks after he reached out to Credico, Stone posted a cryptic tweet suggesting he had foreknowledge that WikiLeaks was about to publish stolen emails that would be damaging to Clinton.

CREDIT: SCREENGRAB
CREDIT: SCREENGRAB

The first tranche of emails hacked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were published by WikiLeaks less than a week later. Stone has provided implausible explanations of that tweet, along with others he posted in 2016 indicating he had foreknowledge of documents WikiLeaks would later publish.

CREDIT: SCREENGRAB
CREDIT: SCREENGRAB

In 2016, Stone bragged about being in direct contact with WikiLeaks. He has since tried to walk that back, telling CNN earlier this year he “is not involved in any collusion, coordination, or conspiracy with the Russians, or anyone else, and there’s no evidence to the contrary.” But his emails to Credico indicate that at the very least, Stone was eager to collude with the website that published emails stolen by Russian hackers — emails that served as the centerpiece of Trump’s campaign-closing message to voters.

It’s likely that Mueller’s team will ask Credico to shed light on the disconnect between Stone’s testimony on one hand and what their email correspondence indicates on the other. Since lying to Congress is a crime, if Mueller concludes that Stone offered false testimony, it may soon be Stone’s “time in the barrel.”