"It was all smoke and mirrors. It's all bullshit. He's his own worst enemy but —and here's the but—had Trump not treated Roger and me like shit, Roger would not have been in this position. He wouldn't have been in the position where, on the outside, he was trying to be relevant to them and trying to be included, trying to be part of the whole thing."
>>>ACCUSED OF ‘GODFATHER' TACTICS
The indictment also said Stone "took steps to obstruct" the Mueller investigation, saying he "made multiple false statements" to the House intelligence committee about his interactions with WikiLeaks, and "falsely denied possessing records that contained evidence of these interactions." It also says he "attempted to persuade a witness to provide false testimony to and withhold pertinent information from the investigations."
As part of the alleged efforts to hide his interactions, Stone advised his friend Randy Credico in Dec. 2017 to replicate the character Frank Pentangeli from >>>The Godfather II, who in the film testifies before a congressional committee and falsely claims not to have critical information. The indictment says: "STONE told Person 2 that Person 2 should do a "Frank Pentangeli." (Credico has previously said he was in contact with Stone about WikiLeaks.)
On the same day, Stone also texted Credico: "And if you turned over anything to the FBI you're a fool."
Months later, in April 2018, Stone sent a threatening email to Credico calling him a "rat" and a "stoolie," and saying: "You backstab your friends—run your mouth my lawyers are dying [to] ripyou to shreds." He also appears to threaten Credico's dog, saying he would "take that dog away from you." (Credico took his therapy dog Bianca to his federal grand jury testimony in September 2018.)
Stone's friend and former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo told The Daily Beast on Friday morning, "This has been rumored to be coming down for several months, so Roger and his legal team are ready to fight these charges in court. They can't prove collusion or conspiracy because it doesn't exist so they're going after him personally. He will be vindicated."
Caputo added that he had "talked to Roger last night. He thought it was possible this might happen today but it's been possible every Friday since summer. So it was probably another Thursday night, sleeping lightly."
The night before his arrest, Stone unprompted texted a Daily Beast reporter a link to a CNN story reporting that he had not been indicted and was beginning to settle into his normal life, going out for pizza on Friday nights instead of staying home threatening about new charges.
MORE TO COME?
Friday's indictment makes Stone the second Trump affiliate indicted for lying to Congress, behind former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty last year and cooperated with Mueller's investigation. Democrats on the House intelligence committee have said they intend to send transcripts of testimony from all their witnesses before the committee's Russia investigation.
There are indications that other witnesses may be in similar legal jeopardy. One committee Democrat, Jim Himes of Connecticut, told The Daily Beast last year that there were "significant questions about the truthfulness" of Blackwater founder Erik Prince's testimony, and two of his colleagues also said they wanted Prince back to answer questions he initially rebuffed.
Last week, Himes' fellow intelligence panel Democrat, Mike Quigley of Illinois, told The Daily Beast there were "nine or ten people" he wanted to give return testimony to the committee owing to questions about "the credibility of their testimony," and specifically named Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
Operation Classified
ROGER STONE COLD LOSER