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FBI Arrests Roger Stone. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired January 25, 2019 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton campaign. Stone thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1.
And, again, July 22nd here, which is fairly early on in the summer, this is conversation and some level of coordination --
ANNE MILGRAM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.
BERMAN: Between at least one Trump campaign official and Stone about the WikiLeaks hack.
MILGRAM: This is enormously important. If you think about conspiracy -- and one of the questions Robert Mueller is investigating is, did the Trump campaign conspire with the Russian government? We know the Russians hacked into the e-mails. We know that they were trying to influence the election.
To be -- to conspire with somebody you have to share their criminal intent, you have to share the intent or the goal, which here would be to release e-mails that were detrimental to Hillary Clinton and to have taken an overt act, like, for example, the tension in making that call to Roger Stone and saying, hey, do you know when it's going to happen? What's the timing? And, you know, I would argue that this is probably the closest evidence we've seen.
It's almost a three-legged stool. You've got the Trump campaign, you've got the Russian government with this information. What we've been missing is the piece in the middle. And we -- we had a little bit of it from Corsi, but this may come --
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But what I just haven't gotten yet from the indictment, because we're only on page four is we comb through it --
MILGRAM: Yes.
CAMEROTA: Is whether or not Stone was a charlatan. Whether or not he actually was having contacts. I haven't gotten to the part where it says that he was in touch.
MILGRAM: Right. CAMEROTA: WikiLeaks denies it, as it says in here, but Stone always said that he did. And so we don't know yet if it actually does all weave together.
MILGRAM: Right. The only thing we know is that Robert Mueller and his team does know. But we do not know yet. And so we're still waiting for that.
BERMAN: And, again, we're talking about Stone's communications about Organization 1.
CAMEROTA: WikiLeaks.
BERMAN: That's WikiLeaks. So what did Stone say to Organization 1? Did they talk?
CAMEROTA: What did they say to him?
BERMAN: Garrett, a quick last thought, and we're going to take a quick break. But before we go read more, your final thought on all of this we just discussed?
GARRETT GRAFF, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. So what's hard to know at this exact moment, and Anne sort of hinted at this, is whether this is all that Mueller has on Roger Stone or is this the beginning? Because it is notably an indictment that's focused only on really that -- those false statements and that obstruction and it doesn't get into some of those charges that we would expect to see, like conspiracy against the United States or campaign finance violations that could point to sort of those larger questions of collusion. So the question is, is that still to come?
BERMAN: All right, guys, dig in, get a copy of this indictment we're looking at right now, dig in.
We're going to have much more on this. Stick around.
Breaking news, Roger Stone taken into custody by the FBI. What does this mean for the Mueller investigation? More coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:36:56] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news, perhaps major breaking news in the Russia investigation.
The FBI has arrested political activist, Trump associate and friend, Roger Stone. CNN's camera was there as it happened. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI, open the door.
FBI, warrant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Well, let's bring back Anne Milgram, John Avlon and Garrett Graff.
Anne, when you are awoken in the dead of night by the pounding on your door and the shouting "FBI, open the door, FBI, warrant," it gets your attention. And that's what happened to Roger Stone just a few hours ago.
And our camera was there to catch it. And we now know that he has been indicted by a grand jury on seven counts of five false statements, one obstruction of justice, one witness tampering.
And we're combing through the indictment, which is long and chock-full of new tidbits in terms of, it seems, what he knew about WikiLeaks, how he was communicating, if he was communicating with WikiLeaks, and then how he was communicating with the Trump campaign.
What do you see?
MILGRAM: So, that's right.
What's interesting about the indictment, and we're just looking at it quickly, is that, you know, first of all, it identifies him as a member of the Trump campaign, which is an important point. The second piece is that, to your point, all these communications he clearly denied when he testified before Congress. They're basically saying, you lied about it. And their -- and that means in order to say you lied about it, it means that they have concrete evidence to the contrary, which is basically confirming that these conversations or at least these e-mails and these attempts to reach out to WikiLeaks took place.
What -- the underlying piece, we still don't have a lot of information here about, but to me this is a really important indictment because it says that, you know, he was a member of the campaign, he lied about his connections to other officials in the Trump campaign and to WikiLeaks potentially. And it's a big deal.
BERMAN: This says he was a member of the campaign until 2015 and then maintained regular contact with the Trump campaign throughout the election.
MILGRAM: Yes.
BERMAN: Before we move on to the substance here, just a little bit more on this morning, Anne.
How unusual is it for the FBI to bang on the door and arrest you here? I think this is the first time in this investigation that they did that on the spot, as opposed to indict and have someone turn themselves over voluntarily. Why would they do that?
MILGRAM: So there's a couple -- there's a couple pieces. First of all, what -- one of the questions I would have is, did they have a search warrant for his house, right? So they say, FBI, we have a warrant, it's clear they have a warrant for his arrest based on that indictment that was returned against him. The question I would ask -- and the reason why you show up at 5:00 a.m. and you do a known -- you essentially show up and say, FBI, open the door, is usually that you have a search warrant. So that's not confirmed. We have no knowledge. But that would be my first question about this.
The second point, which I think is really interesting, is that we just had reporting that the CNN reporter spoke to his counsel, to Roger Stone's counsel yesterday, and he was unaware of this. That is unusual. As a rule, when somebody is under -- when somebody is under investigation and the government knows they're represented, at that point they would go through the lawyer and say, hey, we want you to voluntarily turn yourself in.
[06:40:15] CAMEROTA: But that means they think he's a flight risk.
MILGRAM: On, they could think he's a flight risk. Two, they could also think that, you know, that there's evidence or other things that they might want to --
CAMEROTA: That he'd stash.
MILGRAM: Right, like -- and so we just don't know. But it is not the normal course that you would go through if, you know, when someone's represented by counsel and you have reason to believe they would voluntarily turn themselves in.
CAMEROTA: Listen, this is -- I mean reading through this indictment is just stunning.
So, John, I'm on page eight, letter f, on or about October 1, 2016, which was a Saturday, Person Number 2, who we believe is not Jerome Corsi. Do we know who Person Number 2 --
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It appears to be Randy Credico.
CAMEROTA: Randy Credico, who is?
AVLON: (INAUDIBLE).
CAMEROTA: Who? (INAUDIBLE).
AVLON: A radio host who had been in contact. He's sort of a liberal radio host, local in New York, who Stone has been friendly with, who has interviewed Assange on his show. And it appears Person 1 appears to be Jerome Corsi.
CAMEROTA: OK. So, on October 1, 2016, which was a Saturday, Randy Credico, Person Number 2, sent Stone text messages that said, big news Wednesday, now pretend you don't know me. Hillary's campaign will die this week. In the days preceding these message, the press had reported the head of WikiLeaks planned to make a public announcement on or about October 4th, which was reported to be the tenth year anniversary of the foundation of WikiLeaks.
The point is, is that this is -- this is interesting to me because Roger Stone knew stuff before it came out publicly.
AVLON: Oh, no question about it.
CAMEROTA: And this helps fill in some of those blanks about where he was getting information before these --
AVLON: And -- and some of these conversations have been reported before --
BERMAN: Right.
AVLON: But crucially some have not. And that's what the -- the wheat to separate from the chaff in this indictment. One of the extraordinary things is after the tranche of document is released in October 7th, we learn that Stone receives a text message from a high- ranking campaign official saying, well done. That appears to be new information, right? Credit to Stone.
Also, as John mentioned earlier, that in July --
BERMAN: Yes.
AVLON: A senior Trump official was directed to contact Stone about information about releases and dumps from WikiLeaks.
BERMAN: Yes, to me, I think the timeline here has shifted to June and July all of the sudden and contacts now on paper between the Trump campaign and Roger Stone about WikiLeaks.
And, Garrett, just giant step back here. Roger Stone is someone who has been associated and friends with Donald Trump for a long time. They've had a long relationship. Roger Stone is someone who talked to Donald Trump regularly during the campaign. I had Corey Lewandowski on here on this set tell me so much it would drive Corey crazy. It would make Corey nuts when Donald Trump, then the candidate, was on the phone with Roger Stone.
He is now under arrest by the special counsel. Add it to the president's campaign chair. Add it to the president's one-time lawyer and fixer. Add it to the president's national security adviser. You know, this is a big list and I'm leaving people out.
GRAFF: Absolutely. And I -- and I think, you know, one of the things we have learned at this point is that you have to read these Mueller indictments closely. And so, you know, John, you just mentioned on set there that phrase that the Trump campaign official was directed to contact Roger Stone. You know, that's a verb that adds an additional layer of evidence that Mueller would have to prove in this, that it's not just that the Trump campaign contacted Stone, but that there was a conversation within the Trump campaign directing that contact. So that's already Mueller saying that he has visibility into the decision-making process that went into some of these conversations.
BERMAN: And just to be clear --
GRAFF: So, you know, we have to be reading these -- BERMAN: Yes. And I just want to be clear on this because --
GRAFF: We have to be reading these things very closely, yes.
BERMAN: That point, this point, on this verbiage here, our whole team, the CNN legal team, is pouring over this document right now. This is the first time we've learned that. This is the first time that we have been told officially by the special counsel's team that a Trump campaign official directed contact with WikiLeaks, directed Roger Stone to figure out what was going on here. This is new.
AVLON: That's right.
CAMEROTA: And, Anne, how significant is that?
MILGRAM: It's enormous. It's enormous. I mean I think we've always known or suspected from, you know, for example, the Trump Tower meeting that they were looking for dirt on Clinton, that there was an appetite to get whatever they could on her. But this connection directly back to the campaign, along with what I think are pretty specific, you know, when you read through the indictment, there's a lot of text messages and back and forth between Stone and other folks that he is getting information from Organization 1. It may not be directly but -- and it may not be exactly accurate, but it does look to be relevant to the timeline we know publicly.
CAMEROTA: But just so I'm clear, if there was an official in the Trump -- Trump campaign --
MILGRAM: Yes.
CAMEROTA: Who said to Roger Stone, their long-time informal adviser, go see what you can find out about what WikiLeaks is going to do, that's a crime?
[06:45:03] MILGRAM: So where the crime really takes place is if they are in any way coordinating, working with, asking them to release e- mails earlier, asking them to control the timing of it. Just knowing that the Russians hacked the e-mails I would argue would not constitute sufficient evidence of a crime. But here we have -- we're getting -- we're getting closer. Here we have a member of the campaign instructing them, go find out when it's going to happen.
Now, let say the campaign timed something Donald Trump was going to do around one of those leaks, right, that gets really interesting as a question of whether someone could be charged.
CAMEROTA: Right. What I just can't see yet in the indictment, I -- maybe I'm not there yet or maybe it doesn't exist -- is, if Roger Stone was just full of it --
MILGRAM: Right.
CAMEROTA: And telling the campaign that or if he really was in direct coordination with WikiLeaks. MILGRAM: Or someone else that he was connected to was in connection
with WikiLeaks. Because what I'm seeing from here is that he's pretending -- he's saying publicly, and I don't know whether truthful or not, I have this information.
CAMEROTA: But there's an intermediary.
MILGRAM: It looks like there are other people who he's reaching through. And, you know, these things are often messy. They're often not, you know --
AVLON: Right. And passing on it appears direct requests through an intermediary.
BERMAN: Right.
AVLON: So -- so Stone becomes the conduit who's being back-channeled by the campaign, back channeling through his contacts to reach WikiLeaks to make requests.
BERMAN: We have video, I believe, of the FBI arriving at Roger Stone's residence in Florida to make this arrest. This is -- look at -- look at the FBI going into arrest Roger Stone early this morning. They're not messing around.
AVLON: No.
CAMEROTA: No. I mean there're in flap jackets. This is very -- look at -- look at the team of agents that show up. This is very serious stuff. Obviously they didn't know what was going to happen when they got there, Anne.
MILGRAM: Right.
BERMAN: Fascinating to see this before our eyes.
Garrett Graff, again, back to you and some of the holes this fills in here. We don't know who, on the Trump campaign, was in contact with Roger Stone, directing him to find out what he could about WikiLeaks. But the timeline there, June and July, it's pre-Steve Bannon, right? It -- that's -- that's the Paul Manafort era, certainly Donald Trump Junior era, Jared Kushner era. They're all involved in the campaign. But it's pre-Paul Manafort who -- I mean, sorry, pre-Steve Bannon, who we know was talking to Roger Stone much later in the campaign.
And this gets the Trump campaign directly involved with WikiLeaks, not necessarily Russia, right, but directly involved with WikiLeaks in terms of these e-mails.
GRAFF: Absolutely. And I think you were right to begin to zero in on the timeline, because a lot of what we are beginning to see, sort of indictment to indictment, timeline to timeline, is events transpiring in this June and July window. You have the Trump Tower meeting. You have Michael Cohen throwing in the towel on the Trump Tower Moscow deal on the day that the first DNC -- the first word of the DNC hack becomes public. You have WikiLeaks dropping these documents timed around the Democratic Convention.
And then, you know, there are a lot of other weird-day similarities that we haven't yet had explained. Remember, one of the things that takes place in that July time window is that the Russian Internet research agency is promoting a down with Hillary rally for the same day that the DNC e-mails get leaked. And that's something that the Internet research agency is promoting weeks in advance. And we don't know whether that was something that was coordinated to hit at the same time that the -- that the DNC e-mails came out.
CAMEROTA: Yes. Hey, guys, one more time --
GRAFF: So there's a lot of weird stuff happening.
CAMEROTA: One more time, I just want to -- I just want to play our exclusive CNN video of are the FBI arriving this morning at Roger Stone's house. I think that this is important for everybody to see. So let's just play one more time, as we go to break, what it looked like outside in the dead of night outside Roger Stone's home, the long-time Trump associate in Florida, of the FBI team arriving to take him into custody.
Look at the gear that they are wearing. Look at how -- I mean just look at how serious the FBI is taking this. How many agents there are. And this was, obviously, a surprise arrest. His lawyer didn't know this was coming. Roger Stone didn't know this was coming. He was sleeping. This is what happened this morning in Florida at Roger Stone's home.
We have much more exclusive CNN video that we will play right after we take this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:53:32] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
BERMAN: And the breaking news this morning, the FBI has arrested Roger Stone, the president's political adviser. Exclusive footage you're looking at right now from CNN as the FBI arrives at Roger Stone's residence in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, taking him into custody.
We understand he will be arraigned in Fort Lauderdale later this morning. Indicted on seven counts, one count of obstruction, five counts of making false statements, one count of witness tampering.
Again, they arrived before dawn there, before 6:00 -- or just after 6:00 a.m., a dozen officers we're told. The FBI agent shouted, "FBI, warrant." And you can see it all play out right here.
CAMEROTA: This is just remarkable. It's just remarkable to watch, you know, what they call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI, open the door.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: That said, "FBI, open the door." And now they're about to say another warning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI, warrant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: "FBI, warrant." This is called, you know, are the grab shot in the vernacular and it is remarkable to watch this all unfold.
BERMAN: You can see Roger Stone right there a little bit behind that door.
CAMEROTA: With Roger Stone.
BERMAN: And, yes, you know, standard operating procedure for the FBI to show up heavily armed and --
CAMEROTA: In riot gear.
BERMAN: Like this. But they didn't do this for other people connected in the investigation. So it is remarkable that they did this without warning, without any indication of Stone's lawyers beforehand that this would happen. We don't know also if they executed a search warrant on the house.
[06:55:11] CAMEROTA: I mean as Anne just told us, the reason they do that is because they fear that the person's going to be a flight risk, so they want to do it under the cover of darkness with a surprise, or they think that there's so much evidence -- evidence inside the room, inside the house, that they don't want to give anybody a lead time, a heads up, to try to hide some of that evidence.
So that's what we just watch this morning unfold at Roger Stone's home in Florida.
BERMAN: We have a 24-page indictment in our hands right now. We have this exclusive video. We are pouring over it. There is a lot of new information about Roger Stone and the Russia investigation and Trump campaign contacts and roles in all of this. We're going to have much more just after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY.
We do begin with big, breaking news.
Long-time Donald Trump associate and formal adviser Roger Stone has been arrested and indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. [07:00:07] Our CNN cameras were there exclusively
