Thursday, November 14, 2019

Bad news on the Stone front...?

The Roger Stone trial has gone to the jury, and reporters are now reading the tea leaves -- that is, they are trying to draw larger meanings from questions asked by the jurors of the judge.

Specifically, the jury asked about a letter that Stone wrote to the House intel committee after his testimony. In this letter, Stone falsely identified Randy Credico as his backchannel to Julian Assange. The jurors wanted to know: Does this letter count as sworn testimony?

The judge ruled that it does not.

So it looks as though Roger the dodger may be acquitted on that score.

He may be convicted of other charges. He also told the House that he exchanged no emails or texts concerning Assange, when in fact there were plenty of texts and emails which did so. If the jury believes that there was no intermediary (a bit of revisionist history which I do not accept) Stone could be found guilty of the third charge. He testified to Congress that such an intermediary did, in fact, exist.

Stone is also charged with witness intimidation, because he used threats and brutal language to cajole Credico into backing up his false story. Right now, I don't see how Stone can avoid that one. The evidence seems damning.

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