[View here as a Twitter thread]
Four crimes / theories of liability are listed in the indictment:
18 USC 2 principals; aiding and abetting
1001: false statements
1512: Witness tampering.
1505: Obstruction of justice
1/ Now for the list of unnamed people:
Company 1 = Wikileaks
Head of Wikileaks=Assange
“senior Trump Campaign officials.” Notice that this is plural. There are at least 2 separate campaign officials described.
2/ Person 1: political commentator who worked with an online media publication during 2016. Corsi?
Person 2: Radio host who has known Stone for more than a decade. Credico?
Also a “Supporter of Trump in the UK
And an “associate of the high-ranking Trump Campaign official”
3/ Stone was an official in the Trump campaign until around Aug 2015 and maintained regular contact with and publicly supported the campaign through the election. And now for the facts: June 14: the DNC announced that it had been hacked by the Russians
4/ Around June and July of 2016, Stone informed senior Trump campaign officials that Wikileaks had docs whose release would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. In July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released docs stolen from the DNC.
5/ After July 22, a senior Trump campaign official “was directed” to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging info wikileaks had regarding the Clinton campaign. The “was directed” is important. We don’t know who did the directing.
6/ Stone told the campaign that wikileaks planned future releases of damaging material. July 25: Stone emailed Corsi about “get to [Assange] and get the “pending” emails “they deal with the Foundation, allegedly.” Corsi forwarded to a supporter of Tump in the UK
7/ July 31: Stone emailed Corsi: “Call me MON” Aug. 2, Corsi told Stone “friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. . . 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.” In this email, Stone referred to the “game hackers are now about.” (Notice he said “hackers”)
8/ Stone said they should start suggesting HRC is “old, memory bad, has stroke—neither he nor she well.” There are lots of other communications between Stone, Corsi and Credico about what Assange planned to do.
9/ Oct 1: Credico sent Stone text message . . . “big news Wed. . . now pretend u don’t know me . . . Hillary’s campaign will die this week.” In response to an article reporting that Wikileaks was cancelling its info dump, Stone wrote: “head fake”
10/ October 3: Stone wrote to a supporter involved with the Trump campaign, “Spoke to my friend in London last night. The payload is still coming.”
11/ October 4: Stone received an email from “high-ranking Trump campaign official” asking about the status of future releases by Wikileaks. Stone responded: “a load every week going forward.” He also told this to the supporter involved with Trump campaign
12/ Oct 7: Wikileaks released the first set of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chair. After the Wikileaks Oct. 7 dump, an “associate of the high-ranking Trump Campaign official” sent a text message to Stone that read “well done.” (that’s important)
13/ Between Oct 7 and November 7, Wikileaks released 33 tranches of docs stolen from the personal email account of the Clinton campaign chair, over 50,000 docs. Stone lied about all of this to the House and Senate intelligence committees
14/ Stone urged Credico to lie. He said, “Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan . . .” He mentioned Richard Nixon. Stone told Credico to do a “Frank Pentageli,” [the Godfather character who lied to Congress. (The indictment explained who Pentageli was!)
15/ On April 9, Stone wrote to Credico: “You’re a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends—run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds.” He threatened to “take that dog away from you.” He’s threatening to take away Corsi’s dog??
16/ Then Stone wrote, “I am so ready. Let’s get it on. Prepare to die [expletive].” Stone made multiple false statements to the House intelligence committee about his interactions with Wikileaks, and lied about possessing records containing evidence of those interactions
17/ Credico wrote to Stone that he’d opened himself up to perjury charges “like an idiot.” Stone threatened to file a bar complaint against Credico’s “friend,” “the lawyer who had the ability to contact Assange.@StephynbThanks, I should have put the lawyer with unnamed people
18/ Here’s what I’m curious about. The indictment carefully explains how these facts amounts to obstruction, witness tampering, and false statements.
However, the indictment lists 18 U.S.C. 2, aiding and abetting, but says nothing about it
19/ The indictment puts aiding and abetting with obstruction. (h/t Alan Wasserman)
This implies that Stone was aiding and abetting a venture to obstruct, which means someone else is the principal in that venture.
Who else might be a principal in a venture to obstruct justice? That is the question.
