Stone’s Time In The Barrel?

So yesterday was all Manafort all the time. Today may very well be Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi.

Jerome Corsi was a Soldier in the Stone Gang, senior enough to be trusted with a major continuing operation like disposing of stolen goods from a burglary but not a decision maker. Puzzled by my use of Mafia terms? The Trump Family is a Criminal Organization under the RICO definition. Before he started a career of Treason and Obstruction of Justice, Donald J. Trump had a lucrative (and highly illegal) Money Laundering operation, with some Bank Fraud (and just plain Fraud) on the side. Stone was the Caporegime of a dedicated Political Sabotage group that worked for a lot of Republican Criminals (Richard Nixon most notoriously).

Corsi has turned down a very generous offer from Robert Mueller to plead to a single count of lying to the FBI. It is both too late anyway (the reason Prosecutors can tell is they already know the facts) and exposes him to penalties that I don’t think he grasps. He’s an old guy (72), and conviction on even that single count without a lenient sentencing recommendation amounts to a life sentence.

But Wait! There’s More!

It’s not the only count. I’ll note this information was released by Corsi, not Mueller.

Stone’s efforts to seek WikiLeaks documents detailed in draft Mueller document
By Sara Murray and Katelyn Polantz, CNN
November 27, 2018

Draft court filings obtained by CNN outline significant insights into what special counsel Robert Mueller may know about Roger Stone’s efforts to seek documents from WikiLeaks in 2016.

Mueller’s office was preparing to tell a federal court that Stone pushed an associate to get documents from WikiLeaks — information that is now known to be stolen from the Democrats by Russian hackers — that could help the Trump campaign, according to a draft of a court filing and other documents shared with CNN by Stone associate and conservative author Jerome Corsi.

Corsi said he received the drafts, mostly dated this month, as part of his negotiations with Mueller’s team regarding a plea of making a false statement to federal investigators. According to Corsi and the documents he provided, prosecutors offered him a plea deal, which Corsi says he plans to reject because he doesn’t believe he knowingly lied.

In one of the draft court filings shared with CNN on Monday, the special counsel’s team outlined how Stone, who is only identified as Person 1, allegedly sought the information and emails from WikiLeaks using at least one person, Corsi, as a go-between. Corsi confirmed to CNN that Stone is Person 1.

In the draft court papers, prosecutors outline how Corsi allegedly lied three times to the FBI and special counsel’s office. He told them he rebuffed Stone when Stone asked him to reach out to Wikileaks; he denied that Stone asked him to involve another person in the effort; and he denied he shared information about what Wikileaks had.

In the summer of 2016, Stone allegedly asked Corsi to get in touch with WikiLeaks “about materials it possessed relevant to the presidential campaign that had not already been released,” according to the draft filing. “Get to [Assange],” Stone wrote on July 25, 2016, three days after Wikileaks dumped thousands of Democratic National Committee emails. According to the documents, Stone directed Corsi to get in touch with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, was blasting publicly the documents stolen in the Russian hack, and “get the pending [Wikileaks] emails.”

Corsi then passed that request on to Ted Malloch, a London-based consultant. Malloch said he spoke to the FBI this year and said was asked specifically if he had visited the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He had not, he said. Stone also said he has never met Assange.

Malloch did not respond to a request for comment on this report.

By August 2, 2016, Corsi was emailing Stone to predict that WikiLeaks had more document dumps in the works. Stone has said he spoke with Trump the following day, August 3.

“Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging,” Corsi wrote, according to the draft document. “Time to let more than [the Clinton Campaign chairman] to be exposed as in bed w enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton]. That appears to be the game hackers are now about. Would not hurt to start suggesting HRC old, memory bad, has stroke — neither he nor she well. I expect that much of next dump focus, setting stage for Foundation debacle.”

Aside from Corsi, the draft documents don’t identify the players by name. Stone is referred to as “Person 1” by the prosecutors. CNN determined it was Stone through interviews and correspondence matching the emails described in the filings. CNN determined the “overseas individual” was Malloch based on previously released correspondence between Corsi, Stone and Malloch. Prior government statements as well as CNN’s reporting, context clues and correspondence between Stone and Corsi indicate that “Organization 1” in the filings is WikiLeaks.

Stone has confirmed the accuracy of the emails between him and Corsi that are revealed in the draft filings. He has also confirmed that Malloch was the individual in London with whom Corsi spoke.

As part of his proposed plea agreement, Corsi would have admitted to only one criminal charge with two components — lying to investigators and obstruction of justice before congressional or grand jury proceedings.

Corsi’s lawyer, David Gray, in a letter to prosecutors, said the radio host feared losing his securities license if he pleaded guilty to a criminal charge under seal and did not reveal it to regulators. Gray also said that Corsi would not be sentenced for “some time.”

In the draft agreement, the special counsel’s office does not seek for Corsi to cooperate extensively like it has with other defendants. However, prosecutors had made a deal with him two months earlier that he would speak with Mueller’s office and testify before the grand jury — and not lie during either situation.

So, 30 years let’s say. Corsi will be 102 before he has a bar and barbed wire free view. I don’t know who he expects to sympathise.

I’ll tell you what makes me despair, that these people are so committed to Mammon Worship or Fascism that they’re willing to accept these penalties. They can not be rehabilitated. There is no saving them.

But I’m persistent also.