Now tonight well go through all of this with some of the best experts available. Here is the first thing to know. The stone indictment is not like any, not like any weve seen thus far roger stone isnt like any of the other people charged and bob mueller knows it, so he has his reasons for pressing forward with what looks to be a very public rhetorical brawl. Stone posted his 250,000 bond and then seized the moment right here you see it, channelling his old boss Richard Nixon waving his arms in a victory salute in front of the courthouse thats exactly the kind of spectacle that mueller would expect from a defendant who has literally tattooed Richard Nixons face on his back today stone attacking the probe, declaring his loyalty to trump and fit in an apparent pardon pun for good measure if youre convicted, do you think the president will pardon you . Pardon me do you think the president will pardon you . The only person i have advocated a pardon for is Marcus Garvey i am one of his oldest ferentz. Im a fervent supporter of the president. How fervent consider the actual chair of Donald TrumpsCampaign Paul manafort, of course a former Business Partner of roger stone, has never spoken at all after his indictment, let alone to praise trump on the courthouse steps. Manafort was back in court today quietly. Now, these charges also tell a different story of anyone else thats been charged by mueller stone has seven counts on obstruction, on lying, called false statements, and on witnessing tampering the things he lied about tell a very powerful story and its one that bob mueller wants you to know tonight unlike any other trump associate charged thus far, the lies relate directly to emails that mueller says the russians stole. Let me show you why this matters. The other indicted and guilty trump aides faced crimes that were certainly serious but not related to those leaked emails. Now the russians mueller already indicted, they were accused of crimes explicitly related to stealing and distributing those leaked Clinton Emails and here now tonight right in the middle, mueller charging stone for crimes, this is important, you see it up here, related directly to those leaked emails. Indictment spells it out june and july 2016, stone telling Senior Trump Campaign officials he had information indicating wikileaks had those documents whose release would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign and then we do know the rest, wikileaks started releasing the stolen dnc emails july 22nd, 2016, and for the first time i can report this to you according to bob mueller, a Senior Trump Campaign official then was directed, i repeat, was directed to contact roger stone about additional releases and whether damaging information wikileaks had on clinton tonight we dont know who that Campaign Official is we dont know who was powerful enough to direct them to contact stone. Mueller may certainly know but doesnt say. I can report for you that stone thereafter told the Trump Campaign about, according to mueller, potential future releases of damaging material by wikileaks. That looks bad the narrative there, if you want to understand what were hearing from bob mueller and what is famously called a speaking indictment, is that roger stone lied about efforts to get stolen emails from the russians and the Trump Campaign was in the loop thats the bad news for them now, whats the other news that you need to know fairly . Mueller is not in this indictment alleging a formal lexicon conspiracy hes not alleging in this indictment knowledge by trump himself. That could ultimately benefit donald trump or the Trump Campaign officials or the white house, but for the first time bob mueller is alleging, i cant repeat it enough, if you remember one thing from our reporting tonight, bob mueller is alleging today the Trump Campaign was in the loop about roger stones efforts to get illegally obtained dirt on Hillary Clinton from wikileaks that went all the way back to russia and someone was directing senior Campaign Officials about staying in that loop wow. All of this is the kind of thing that a white house which weve reported and documented lies a lot, but even the folks who do a lot of lying had to shift today on how they described this, from no collusion to none that involved the president you have the campaign chair, who will appear in court today you have making cohen who was a political adviser and someone who worked in the Trump Organization under indictment. You have gates as well and you have roger stone, a longtime under indictment on businesses that had nothing to do with the president. Let me make one thing clear, john the president did nothing wrong. There was no collusion on his part. All right the end of that statement, there was no collusion on his part, not there was no collusion anymore. Apparently theyre done with that there was no collusion on his part. Tonight, i can tell you that may be the most suspicious denial weve heard yet from the trump white house. We have a special panel to get into all of this a former associate of roger stone and a former Trump Campaign aide, sam nunberg, who has been interviewed by the probe and we talked to you on the beat about what they asked about roger stone. Jill winebanks is here with bill kristol, now the founder of the group defending democracy together and former federal prosecutor, seth waxman. Jill, very significant indictment what jumps out to you . There are so many things that jump out the first is how detailed the emails are in terms of what was said and how foolish it was for roger stone to lie about them. Because he had to know he had created those emails and had received those emails, and yet he went and blatantly lied to congress, saying i have no emails that connect me to russia there are none he denied all of those things that are right in front of our eyes now in this indictment. So you cant read it and not conclude that he is guilty of those crimes when they say he lied about them, and, of course, the most horrible thing to me as a dog lover is his attempt to intimidate the witness by saying, im taking your dog. Thats terrible. That being person two, who weve interviewed here as randy credico. According to mueller, they look at that as a serious tampering to intimidate him out of truthful testimony with regard to criminal exposure by the Trump Campaign, what passage to you is most significant in this indictment well, of course, the passage that says a senior official pressured roger to do something and that that was at the direction of someone above that senior official that they did it so who is that person thats referred to in paragraph 12 . And that has to have been possibly the president , possibly jared kushner, possibly don jr those are the ones that could have been high enough up to be above a senior Campaign Official seth, as a prosecutor, not everything that is alleged is formally charged as a crime. Do you view this as an indictment that is fundamentally about obstructive activities, full stop . Or do you view it as obstruction with the implication of collusion . Well, i think its the latter, for certain. This is obviously on its face an obstruction indictment, but muellers mandate is the collusion between the russians and the Trump Campaign to influence the election so if we presuppose that there was this kwourp, an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton in exchange for a promise to reduce or eliminate sanctions, for example, the way prosecutors look at this is this would be additional overt acts in furtherance of that conspiracy in other words, the two principals, the russians on the one side and the trump team on the other, distanced themselves, didnt want to have their fingerprints on the wrongdoing so they used intermediaries. Thats the way prosecutors look at this sort of thing. Also, it can be evidence of consciousness of guilt the gru clearly has the ability to send out emails. Trump or one of his colleagues could have called the russians and said, hey, why dont you send this out into the public . They didnt do that. They used intermediaries that can be overt acts in furtherance of a conspiracy. Seth, again, on the law, as a prosecutor im going to get to our other very qualified guests. On the law, i wonder what you think of the passage that mueller includes that stone wasnt just gossiping or making big random requests, but right here on page 7 what struck me as so damning was mueller including that stone was specifically trying to find certain emails on clinton dating back to 2011 asked for that to be relayed as a question, like a document search, to assange and allegedly person 2 then passed that on and there was bccing to make it real why do you think thats in there . That doesnt strike me something that he needs to prove tampering, for example. It certainly doesnt. It shows proactive, overt acts taken to facilitate a potential underlying crime because its being done at the direction of people within the campaign, potentially the highest levels of that campaign. So youre talking conspiracy . Correct this is all conspiracy law thats exactly right under conspiracy law, the actual completion doesnt need to take place for it to be criminal. It may have been carried out and successful even the efforts to undertake wrongdoing like this is criminal in and of itself. Let me bring in bill kristol. Bill, i hope youll forgive the analogy, but sometimes here on the beat you have been like a father to us on a long road trip so i ask on behalf of some of us in the audience, some of us who have relied on you in that role, are we there yet no. Because i think we still need to see the full scope of the conspiracy weve come a long way. The fact as you put it well at the beginning, the Trump Campaign was in the loop with the russians through stone that seems to be alleged and pretty wellestablished, presumably by these documents. Is it plausible that donald trump either didnt direct this or wasnt knowledgeable about the direction of the efforts against stone to find out more about these illegally obtained document that seems extremely implausible to me. So im going to assert as a matter of probability that donald trump was in the loop on the effort to get the russians to help his election prospects by releasing the emails whether there was an explicit quid pro quo whether trump was enough in the loop to be legally liable, i dont know i defer to the lawyers about what exactly the criminal liability would be, but on the fundamental political question, i dont mean political in a partisan sense, but in the broader sense of politics. I think we know that donald trump was happy to have russian help and was in the campaign and knew that people beneath him very likely knew that people beneath him were in touch directly or indirectly with agents of russia to help release whether they. To at least release these illegallyobtained emails sam its a difficult day for a lot of us that have been around trump org. Theyre going closer and closer. They have roger. Michael cohen. Manafort Allen Weissleberg in the Southern District who is not being represented by the trump legal counsel. Its something where you can see that along with the political, i tell you this as a, you know, republican, that this deal that the president accepted today that it pretty perilous situation. Its a situation that many of us wanted him to avoid and thats why we were trying to get him to run on impeachment at the midterm. Ari, can i just add one thing . Im going to bringyou back in, but one thing while im with sam. Does it look to you like the noose is tightening around the key Political Leadership of the Trump Campaign . Look, ive had to follow this closely and ive discussed this with you off you can see the narrative theyre building every indictment gets closer and closer i assume through that. I dont want to discuss my grand jury testimony, but i discussed questioning that they have a narrative and they have a way. Were here with a watergate prosecutor it looks like this is, you know it looks like youre getting to watergate here. Did you know that roger stone was making such explicit searches and seeking assange to sort of try to nail clinton in that way no. No, i did not. Now that you know that, does it make it look to you like your former mentor was trying to collude . Was he was he trying to collude . I think he was i dont think he did as i said, think he conspired against himself. Would he have . Would he have gone look, i cant speak for him, but maybe he would have, but once again, i dont believe that he did. However, that does not but you believe tonight that this adds to the evidence of attempted collusion . I believe that once you look at the indictments, yes. Weve gone from russians, the Russian Military to Campaign People now we have direct contact bill very close there. Yeah, i mean, one point that jill made that it seems kind of crazy for stone to have lied to congress on something that was so obviously discoverable and would end up being proven that he lied. Yes, but, what if the strategy was well, what if the strategy was better to delay than to admit everything early on and if you can drag things out for a year and force the prosecutor to find all this evidence and then go to court and delay in court and stuff, you end up perhaps dragging it through the whole first term and perhaps you get pardoned stones not a fool manaforts not a fool. They may be getting bad legal advice at times. I think they are acting so as to drag this out adds much as they can so they are hoping there isnt an impeachable moment here for President Trump and that President Trump makes it through his first term, gets reelected or doesnt get reelected and they get pardoned. I think pardon is central to the manafort and the stone right and that goes your analysis there, and you followed it closely, bill, goes to the way that manafort is accused of continuing to try to help donald trump, even after he claims under oath that he was going to cooperate and flip and sam, you look at the way that the special counsel did that dramatic morning raid, im going to read from their explanation of why they say it was lawfully necessary they believed that the disclosure of the indictment that was going to be public and related materials on the Public Record prior to arrest would have increased the risks that the defendant, roger stone, would flee and destroy or tamper with evidence. Do you think that was a credible concern of theirs . Rei doni dont believe so. You dont think roger would run . I dont believe roger would run. Im not going to say he wouldnt obstruct justice once the fbi was coming or he was arrested. What i would say is that aaron zbi i find what they did not include yet in this indictment is ominous, as somebody who is still skeptical of a circumstantial case of removing donald trump from office. What did they not include that youre saying they could include later . Im saying they have not included two stone spoke to in the campaign they have not named the names. Of course they have not said whether or not he directly had contact, nor do i know if he did. Right but you do know how it worked. Roger stop was your mentor and you were a direct aide to donald trump. Hold on. Ill let you finish. Youre speaking to the fact that your reading of this is that they may identify and make actions against that small number of potential people in the future i i think that theyre making a case that this we havent gotten to the transition yet. We havent gotten to trump tower moscow we havent gotten to what was going on meeting with russian bankers with kushner i think this is coming to to a fore. Well, jill, you listen to an individual who as i say is linked to both stone and trump saying that who has been in the grand jury room. What does it say to you . Well, i think listening to sam, number one, why wasnt conspiracy included . Because there could have been a general conspiracy included. But in terms of the destruction of evidence, i think that you needed the fbi to go in unannounced because destruction of evidence, he might not flee, he may even enjoy the attention hes getting, but hes charming, but he would not be above destroying the evidence. Right. And he knew there was evidence so you had to go in there without saying im coming in tomorrow. Right were going to bring in a member of the House Intelligence Committee on all of this so sam nunberg, thank you for coming on the beat on this big breaking news day. Let me explain where we go from here many of these charges that stone is facing relates to the testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in september of 2017. I am falsely accused of making false statements during my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that is incorrect. Any any error i made in my testimony would be both immaterial and without intent. I will plead not guilty to these charges. I will defeat them in court. I believe this is a politically motivated investigation. Mueller, though, alleges stone did not make a single false statement to congress, but, rather, made many false statements this includes about the documents that he said he didnt have, the possession thereof of the source for the big, big claims he made about wikileaks, as well as requests he made for information from Julian Assange and the way he talked to his selfproclaimed identified intermediary also, his communications with the Trump Campaign about wikileaks. Stone maintains everything had gone well that day we had a very frank exchange. I answered all of the questions. I made the case that the accusation that i knew abou