Good evening from nbc headquarters in new york day 736 of the trump administration, and after 35 days the shutdown is over for now. This afternoon the president announced that the government would reopen, and he signed a bill that does just that about 90 minutes ago there is no money for the president s wall the central and signal promise of his campaign along with mexican financing for it the stark New York Times front page headline tells the story tonight. Trump accepts deal with no wall money. Writers could not resist calling the president s wall a cave instead. Much more on that ahead. But we begin this evening with the story that unfolded in the dark before the sun came up on this very day, the feds surrounded roger stones house in Fort Lauderdale with a warrant for his arrest hes now been indicted on seven counts roger stone and donald trump go back over four decades special counsel Robert Muellers indictment pulls the russia inquiry one big step closer to the inner circle of the president ial campaign. Prosecutors describe stone as a key link between the campaign and wikileaks, which released russianhacked emails at critical times during the 2016 election the indictment also focuses on two keystone associates, the author, birther, and conspiracy theorist jerome corsi, and who stone had contacted about wikileaks plans, and new york host and comedian randy credico, who was an intermediary between stone and wikileaks founder Julian Assange a comparison of key dates in the 2016 campaign we found this truly helps, and muellers latest allegations about stone helps to fill in some of the blanks about what was happening at the time. We start with may 2016 the dnc found out it had been hacked then according to todays indictment in june and july 2016, roger stone told, quote, Senior Trump Campaign officials about the stolen emails that were in wikileaks possession, emails that he described as being potentially damaging to Hillary Clinton. July 22nd, wikileaks releases its first batch of stolen emails. Heres the key part of this filing at some point after july 22nd, a, quote, Senior Trump Campaign official was directed by someone else to ask stone what other information wikileaks might have five days after those emails were released, we heard this out in the open and on live television. But it would be interesting to see i will tell you this russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press lets see if that happens. That will be next. We now know from a previous mueller indictment that russian intelligence operatives indeed launched a new attack on Hillary Clintons emails that very day. Fast forward to october 3rd again from todays indictment, stone is tipped off that another stolen email release would happen the next day. He then emailed a contact in the Trump Campaign saying, quote, spoke to my friend in london last night, the payload is still coming. Four days later, october 7th, just hours after the release of that shocking access hollywood tape, wikileaks you will recall starts releasing the documents stolen from john podesta todays indictment says an associate of a highranking Trump Campaign official who is believed to be steve bannon sent a message to roger stone that read well done. Mueller has now charged stone with seven criminal counts, witness tampering, obstruction, five counts of making false statements to congress in 2017 about efforts to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton stone spoke to reporters today shortly after his Court Appearance in florida. After a twoyear 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 simply have contacted my attorneys and i would have more than willing to surrender voluntarily. I will plead not guilty to these charges. I will defeat them in court. I believe this is a politically motivated investigation. 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 to be arranged next tuesday in federal court in washington he does not have a valid passport and for now, theres the nixon wave, his travel is restricted to the Nations Capital as well as new york and southern florida just a few hours ago stone went on cable tv to once again proclaim his innocence no senior Campaign Official told me to find out anything about wikileaks. Wheres the russian collusion, chris . Wheres the wikileaks collaboration . Wheres the evidence that i received anything from wikileaks or Julian Assange . And passed it on to donald trump or the Trump Campaign . Lets bring in our panel. Former u. S. Attorney joyce vance, frank figliuzzi, who in the past has worked for Robert Mueller. Jeremy bash former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon, and philip rucker, White House Bureau chief for the washington post. Joyce, by our reckoning its been about 18 hours since the the feds showed up with battering ram, if needed, at roger stones front door for the folks who have lived a friday in america, perhaps just getting home from work and getting caught up, what was your takeaway from this today i think the most important thing that we saw today was the fact pattern that you referenced in your opening comments we learned today that someone directed a senior Campaign Official to have roger stone find out what else wikileaks had. And of course were all speculating about whether or not thats the president we dont know for certain. But someone powerful enough to direct someone high up in the campaign was involved in this system, they can go on television and say theres no collusion, but what really controls how we view this are the facts that are related in this very detailed speaking indictment, which is replete with facts talking about coordination between senior Campaign Officials and wikileaks, which we know and which they knew at the time was russia. Frank figliuzzi, roger stone is on cable tv tonight doing a couple things. He is raising money for his defense fund, giving out a web address, and hes saying among other things that it was overkill today he says his wife is deaf and was scared and disoriented he was worried she might get shot because she didnt know what was going on, obviously upsetting for a household, they brought a battering ram. He said they could have called the house and had the same effect first of all, tell us what goes into a calculation that and, secondly, what stood out to you . With regards to arrest mechanics, its all about risk the risk in roger stones arrest is that youre dealing with someone who has never cooperated an ounce with the special counsel. In fact, hes gone out of his way to obstruct, tamper with witnesses, challenge the special counsel and the investigators, and as we see in the indictment, just lie through this entire process. Secondly, lets understand something with regard to the numbers involved if hes even accurate that is that they were simultaneously executing a signed search warrant signed by a federal judge or magistrate. If you do that, you bring your Evidence Response Team with you and you get it done quickly with a number of evidence response technicians who go through the house and exhaustively search purr opportunity to the warrant. When it sounds like theres a lot of people for an arrest, remember the fbi is executing two simultaneous searches and executing an arrest for someone who essentially acts like a thug and so its the safest way to do it we dont know the unknown factors, whether or not there was knowledge of a gun or other weapons in the house but they did typically what it looks like in florida where i was the number two official in the fbis miami office, you show up, you overwhelm with force surprise, you knock on the door at 6 00 a. M. This is a standard arrest. And this is what it looks like jeremy bash, every time the president says no collusion you say thats not the point the word is conspiracy taking your word, conspiracy, what did we learn today . What did you learn on the conspiracy front i was struck on the indictment by the fact pattern that showed the extent to which there was communication between roger stone and the senior levels of the campaign, and roger stone and wikileaks. In effect, roger stone was the go between between the Trump Campaign senior officials and the kremlins foreign intelligence cutout, the Wikileaks Organization for conspiracy, you have to have an agreement, a meeting of the minds between two conspirators, as well as an overt act. There was at least acquiescence by trump senior officials whether or not they actively participated in the conspiracy, we dont know yet. But this is also looking in some ways to me like bribery in the sense that Donald TrumpsForeign Policy, his proputin Foreign Policy was corruptly obtained because he saw the benefit that he was receiving through the political support, through wikileaks, and the Financial Support through the trump tower moscow deal. Phil, as they say in the movies, i couldnt help but notice the Government Shutdown ended a few hours after this arrest coincidence . You know, its a remarkable turn of events for President Trump, a big day in his presidency because we have this Mueller Investigation becoming far more serious now ensnaring a longtime friend of the president roger stone is not a peripheral figure he has been the core of trumps Political Development and was a key figure at the beginning of the campaign and floated throughout the trump orbit during the campaign and into the beginnings of the presidency and then you have trumps capitulation on the shutdown a complete capitulation. He is caving to Congressional Democrats whether he says so or not. And hes facing a backlash on the right. We saw ann coulter, the conservative commentator who just last month was critical o trump to the point where trump decided to enter this Government Shutdown in order to get his border wall funding. We saw her criticize trumps move today we saw lou dobbs on the fox business channel, a show the president loves watching, might be one of the president s favorites, he had critical words to say as well and so the president while hes dealing with the legal pressures from the Mueller Investigation, is also dealing with a serious political problem at this hour over his decision to reopen the government and give up his leverage in pursuit of that wall funding. Joyce vance, its really hard to see over the shoulder of a good card player and see as they peek at what theyve got in their hand mueller makes it harder still. Do we get a peek at any of his hand today whats yet to come . I think we did get a peek you know, its entirely possible that this could be the end we dont really know for certain what he has. But there are so many hanging pieces that he gives us in this indictment who are the senior Campaign Officials . Who else was involved . What was the interaction like between stone and wikileaks . Was he asking them to do other sorts of hacking for the campaign all these many possibilities mueller is not one to pose questions that he doesnt intend to answer. Weve seen him do that over and over this indictment feels more like a stopping point on the way to the final conclusion than that conclusion itself. Just as a human citizen, someone weve come to know here over the years, talking to you on television, can you believe as alleged this much was going on during our campaign for president . Ca you know, its stunning and i think the point youre making is a very good one. We can talk and prosecutors of course like to talk about technical aspects of crime what are the elements we have to prove with admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt . Theres also a political catalog calculus here. That means there should be a form of accountability on capitol hill and they should look at these crimes threw their filter as well as the legal one as a counterintel guy, how do you view wikileaks and how would you recommend our viewers view wikileaks yeah, im glad you asked that, brian. Lets understand something the u. S. Government views wikileaks as a nonstate foreign adversary. They are the equivalent of their own Foreign Intelligence Service and they are an enemy of the United States. They are responsible for the largest leakage of classified information in the history of the United States, some of it at a velevel that was singular in nature someplace in the world that can only have been discovered by a wire tap or intercept or a human source. Understand something, we should view wikileaks in that realm, but lets also understand that after todays indictment we should be reviewing roger stone as a traitor why do i say that . Because he betrayed our democratic form of government, how we elect a president , the indictment allegations that he was communicating with wikileaks either directly or indirectly. He was being directed to essentially have them release stolen information, right . And he didnt care about the impact it had on our system of government so we have him in concert with the enemy. Add another enemy to this picture, russia, which we know was responsible for the hack at the dnc and when we an individual here, roger stone, who essentially should be viewed as a traitor hollywood side bar, fans of notting hill may remember the scene where spike is posing in front of the press corps on the front porch. Roger stone seemed to enjoy and we have to be careful here part of the media explore he got today. You dont give the nixon pose unless you have thought about it and really want to thats kind of his thing its been his trademark for while in addition to wearing nixons face tattooed between his shoulder blades. He went on cable tonight and gave it both barrels whats the calculation here, because if he gets nicked on a couple of these as a 66yearold man, we always say this, we dont mean to be maudlin, he could die in federal prison. Two points here, brian. One, i think his game is a pardon i think hes trying to show that the president that hes holding tough. Hes not going to bear false witness against the president. Of course thats precisely what he did visavis the other investigations a lot of the charges in the indictment went to the fact that roger stone misled the House Intelligence Committee in some ways, their entirety of their devin nunes investigation was tainted. Not that we thought that it was really on the level before, but we have further evidence today that it really needs to restart from scratch under congressman adam schiff, the new chairman. The president s time and who can blame him, has been occupied mostly by this ongoing shutdown. He lost today, the central promise of his run for office. In addition to mexican financing, what now occupies the president s Time Starting this weekend . Twitter not included, and going into next week its a good question, brian the president had been postponing a number of agenda items and sort of getting this third year of his presidency launched to deal with the shutdown and to be honest, i think hes going to be focused over the next three weeks on figuring out a way to secure some sort of funding for the wall and to save face theres a threeweek deadline here of february 15th when congress will have to pass longer term spending bills theres a promise for a Conference Committee of sorts to hash out some sort of Border Security proposal. The president is going to be wanting to get that border wall funding. Democrats, of course, are going to opposite it meanwhile, the president s also going to be thinking about whether to declare that national emergency, which would enable him to set in motion a process to build the wall without any congressional oversight. So i do not think hes going to shift over these next three weeks from his focus on the wall and trying to meet that Campaign Promise but there are few other things on the horizon, including a potential summit sometime in february with north korean dictator kim jongun that would be the second summit between kim and trump. Its something trump is very eager to do after hes been receiving flattering letters from the north korean authoritarian dictator well see if that comes to shape. There is that coming up after all. What a magnificent front four to get us started after a consequence friday night as we said skup said joyce vance, frank figliuzzi, jeremy bash, phil rucker once again, our guests always say Robert Mueller speaks volumes in an indictment so what else did this one have to say today later, with no money for the wall, the president doubles down on his telling of a rather gruesome tale of Human Trafficking and no one knows where he got this one. 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