On top of the seven to ten, which really, when you started thing it up, could be the whole enchilada if youre already 70 years old and not in great health he could be facing another ten years in prison if the the judge in his case concludes he breached his plea agreement by lying to prosecutors after he agreed to talk with them manafort was in court today. We have these great sketches manafort was allowed to wear a suit this time instead of his jail jump suit he is now white haired he is using a cane reporters at the scene described him as leaning heavily on that cane with all the prosecutors there and with manaforts defense team there and manafort in the courtroom, everybody in person today today the judge in his case ultimately elected to not today make a decision on the substance of these current allegations against him, which are, again, that he broke his deal by lying repeatedly to prosecutors. Manafort was there today he had to go back to jaille hell be back a week from monday that will be the day that a judge conducts a hearing behind closed doors to determine whether manafort is going to be on the hook for all these extra years potentially tacked on to his sentence thats going to be a closed door sealed hearing a week from monday and it is going to be sealed because of the sensitivity around manaforts testimony thus far and how much of his criminal case still bears upon other still ongoing investigations and other people who have not yet been charged. Remember, Paul Manafort has done at least nine interview sessions with the special counsels office he has testified before the grand jury at least twice. We will ultimately get some redacted transcript of that manafort hearing before they have taken out the sensitive stuff, but theyre holding that behind closed doors because theyre expecting it not to be suitable for public consumption because of the cases it relates to it tells you something about the president and this moment in history that the president s Campaign Chairman in court today turning one white hair using a cane trying to avoid the extra decade in prison that could determine whether or not he dies behind bars. Tells you something about the time period we are living through that that doesnt make the front page today for this particular president doesnt make probably the first ten pages of the paper tomorrow morning. Because on a day like today it just couldnt compete. When the Government Shutdown crisis finally started to end today with the president appearing in the rose garden to announce that the government will reopen under its old funding levels with no policy change, no wall between the u. S. And mexico, no down payment on it, so sample portion of it whatsoever, when the president announced he would accept the exact same offer he rejected a month ago that started the whole catastrophe for the government and for hundreds of thousands a people who work for the government and their families when the president made that announcement that he said he would never, ever make, which is the shutdown will end for him getting nothing, when that dark cave opened up and swallowed all light and made it breezy and cold for a moment, what that moved off the front page of every newspaper in the country and every moment of tv knew in the country was not just what was going on at that moment with his already convicted Campaign Chairman it also moved this the indictment of the president s long time friend and longest serving political adviser the selfpromoting gadfly roger stone. Well be talking about the shutdown tonight at the moment the president announced the shutdown it displaced momentarily this indictment roger stone was indicted yesterday under seal the special counsels office requested that the court keep that under seal until stone could be arrested this morning quote, the United States of america by and through Robert Mueller iii respectfully move this is court to seal the accompanying arrest and indictment and delay public entry on the public docket of this motion to seal and all related matters until the defendant named is arrested. It will. It is essential that any information concerning the pending indictment in this district be kept sealed prior to the defendants arrest these facts present an extraordinary situation and a compelling governmental interest that justifies not only the seal of the indictment but also a short delay in the public docketing of these sealed pleadings and the accompanying order until the defendants arrest that is dated yesterday from the special counsel. Thats the special counsel saying to the judge, this indictment should be sealed. Our request to seal is indictment should be sealed. This should all be kept off the docket until weve got him and the judge apparently agreed because the first sign we got today of roger stone was when this video from a cnn producer who was aseened by the network to stake out the house in the event that anything like this might happen and, you know, this in itself is a rackable milestone in the Mueller Investigation. We have seen a lot of people charged in this case and marched in and out of courthouses. We have seen them in suvs you will thing up in parking lots outside of buildings but nobody else got arrested by the fbi in this fashion. I mean, even when they raided perimeter. s house in virginia remember all the drama about that they took away his files and computers and ipads and nice suits and ostrich jacket, at least then they left Paul Manafort behind. This is the first time we have seen them grab the dude from his house and take him into custody. Now, we do not have to speculate toos why the special counsels office chose to do it this way they laid out their reasons in their motion to seal they said, they told that judge in d. C. Yesterday, they believe roger stone would flee and or destroy or tamper with evidence if he knew he was being indicted surprise, they arrested him before dawn today. Yes, if you are trying to snip every loose thread here, yes, youre right because that happened in the predawn hours today, hours before the proclaimed end to the Government Shutdown, its likely the fbi agents who arrested roger stone today did so while not being paid but now we have got the unsealed indictment for roger stone that lays out seven felony indictments against him. Nothing suggests stone had any previous contact at all with the special counsels office, which is interesting doesnt appear mueller ever bothered to interview roger stone before indicting him today, but stone is charged today with lying to congress and with attempting to intimidate another witness to either lie to congress or refuse to testify to congress all of the charges against stone today and the narrative that prosecutors lay out that supports the indictment, it all relates to stones contacts and communications during the president ial campaign related to wikileaks. Wikileaks distributed the documents that Russian Military intelligence stole from the Democratic Party be the Clinton Campaign roger stone is alleged to have lied to congress repeatedly about his communications with wikileaks personally and through intermediaries hes also supposed to have lied about whether or not his efforts with wikileaks were done on his own say so or whether the Trump Campaign put him up to it. Ive got some expert help on this tonight a hot of people who follow this from a legal perspective are suggesting today and tonight the stone indime is something that puts the central question of the Mueller Investigation closer to President Trump and his campaign than any other indictment we have seen thus far again, we will get some expert help on that coming up in just a moment, including the significant of the fact that now yet another person close to the president has been charged with witness tampering in the Mueller Investigation. That is something the president himself sort of increasingly look, like he may have some legal problem of his own again, we will get to all of that but im quite sure you heard a lot about the case already today. The arrest happened before dawn. We got the indictment this morning. Im not going go through it line by line. Im not trying to fresh out the sordid characters partly because i cant stomach it but also because theres two things i want to focus on. Theyre both open questions for me in terms of where my head is at and how it fits into the overall scandal and how close we are to getting the biggest and most important questions answered, these are the two things i am sort of stuck on the first one is a dynamic, a pattern, that we have seen over and over and over again in this scandal when it comes to people surrounding the president and even the president himself this is something we saw from the very beginning, from december 2017 when Trump National security adviser mike flynn turned up in court, pleading gl and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors what mike flynn admitted to lying about, remember, was his contact with the russian government during the transition his contact with the russian government about u. S. Sanctions on russia. What never made sense about flynn and him pleading guilty is why he felt the need to lie to the fbi about his contact with the russian government and him talking to them about sanctions. I mean, at the time he had that contact with the russian government he was the incoming National Security adviser. Yeah, maybe it was a little weird that before he was technically sworn in he was having policy discussions with another government, but its not that weird had he publicly asserted, yes, i talked to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions. We in the Trump Campaign have been clear we have a different take on sanctions an the outgoing administration. Had flynn said that that might have occasioned half a raised eyebrow, but instead, he lied about it multiple times to the fbi. What about those communications with the russian government were so what intrepid embarrassing linked to a larger thing you didnt want to have to explain what about those communications with the russians were worth lying about . Why lie about snit why lie to the fbi about it that became a question that was even harder to answer when we learned it wasnt just mike flynn that lied about the sanctions. Washington post reported months later flynns deputy also made false statements to the fbi about the same thing, denying the truth about those contacts with the russian government during the transition when they talked to them about sanctions she lie about it to reporters at the time we later learned she also lied about it to the fbi. And again, there was nothing weird about talking to the russian government about sanctions so why create a big cover story about it why create a cover story you stuck to to the point where you opened yourself up to criminal charges for lying about it and it wasnt just the two of them the New York Times later reported later in the transition there were a bunch of Trump Officials who are all read in on the truth, which is that flynn was talking to the russian government about sanctions during the transition. Among the Trump Officials read in on that and sent documentation, was sean spicer who became the white house spokesperson sean spicer knowing the real story gave the public a false story. He publicly spread this lie about flynns contact with the russian government when we know he was read in on what happened. Why did they all tell lies about that telling the truth would not have been a scandal yet there was an elaborate coverup involving multiple officials, false statements in public, to reporters and even to federal Law Enforcement agents and we have seen that dynamic over and over again in this scandal with characters large and small. Speaking of small, remember old George Papadopoulos who already served his prison sentence in this scandal hes admittedly a minor character in this scandal, right . We learn he lied to federal investigators about the content and timing of his communications with someone connected to the russian government whatever you think about George Papadopoulos he was attached to the Trump Campaign him having conversations with somebody who reported to be linked to the russian government would not be crazy, would not be illegal. Thats the sort of thing he could have admitted to without much need to explain further, but yet he lie about it to federal investigators. Thats why he went to prison hes the small end of the food chain. Hes the grub. The great white shark in this food chain is the candidate. We saw this same dynamic at work with trump himself now we know that through the president ial campaign, trump and his business were pursuing a very large real estate deal in russia a trump tower moscow deal that would have required the involvement and permission of the russian government now we know that he and his business were pursuing that during the president ial campaign the president now says its perfectly fine he was doing that afterall, hes a real estate guy. He pursues real estate projects. As he says, everybody thought he would lose the president ial election so why would he forego . There was nothing wrong with him pursuing that deal thats what he says now. Whatever you think about that explanation frPresident Trump, that explanation would have held the same amount of water during the campaign instead, for months he explicitly lied and said he wasnt pursuing any deals in russia it wasnt illegal for him to pursue a real estate deal. He spins a story about that that tries to make it sound okay but for months he lied about it. Tried to keep it secret. Michael cohen went to congress and tried to answer questions knowing the exact truth about the project as someone directly involved in it he nevertheless under oath told Congress Lies about the project and how long it went on. That project wasnt illegal. Why did they have to invent a fake cover story for it that included committing felonies and lying under oath in order to keep it secret what was it about that that you had to tell a fake story and its all of them i mean, when Jared Kushner fi filled out his security clearance application, why did he leave off they he met muched times with the Russian Ambassador, that he had taken the meeting in trump tower with russians all those things kushner has an explanation for, he and his wellpaid spokesperson have given those explanations okay, then why did he keep them all secret in watergate they said the coverup was worse than the crime. In this scandal, the coverup is the neon flashing air roe that points at where the crime might be, because time and time and time again we have seen the same dynamic. All of them, up and down, have all been caught telling lies, even to the point of facing prison time for telling lies about things that on the surface are not worth lying about. Things that arent illegal things that could have a totally normal explanation and that is a neon sign shaped like an air rrrow pointing at w must be neat that they took such risks to cover up. Today we see that again with roger stone. You know, theres a lot of color in the stone indictment with him, like, threatening that guys dog when he was trying to stop that guy from testifying before congress. Theres him quoting the godfather. Theres the headline, the allegation from the special counsel that stone did not make his overtures on his own initiative a Senior Campaign official directed roger stone to get him to find out what wikileaks had on clinton everyone wondering who on the campaign would have the authority to direct a Senior Campaign official. Everybodys wondering if that would be the candidate himself maybe. I dont know we dont know. Special counsel doesnt say. But if you set all that aside for just a second, consider the overall dynamic we have seen with all these other figures in this scandal thus far. Lying about stuff that on the surface it doesnt seem like they need the lie about. Just look for a second in the stone indictment at the specific allegations that are spelled out about what stone lied about. Again, with all the other peep in this scandal, we have seen them again and again and again in their security clearance applications risking prison time to tell lies about things that do not seem to be crimes. Things that on the surface dont seem like they need to be lied about. In this case in this new indictment, what roger stone is alleged to have lied about under oath, threatened this witness that he needed to lie about it too or not testify if he couldnt commit to not lying about it, what hes accused of, the big lie at the heart of the stone indictment, is something really, really small and specific what is spelled out in the indictment today is that roger stone appears to have concocted a cover story which says the way he tried to get information through wikileaks was through this guy, a guy roger stone knew, a guy who had a radio show on which he interviewed Julian Assange from wikileaks stone thought he could be a good contact. If a guy would interview him he could reach him to get information on what wikileaks had about Hillary Clinton clinton. That was the cover story that roger stone concocted and tried to sell to the special counsel according to prosecutors that story is false and that stone actually dispatched a different guy, this guy to, figure out what wikileaks had on Hillary Clinton. Can we put those two guys upside by side . This is the big lie thats spelled out in the indictment. Roger stone says its the guy on the right. Actually, it was the guy on the left okay who cares . Why does that matter why would the difference between those two paths to wikileaks be worth not only lying about it to congress, but doing back flips and making all these floor id baroque threats agains