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FBI Arrest Longtime Trump Associate Roger Stone. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired January 25, 2019 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: --was were there exclusively when FBI agents, you can see them in riot gear approached Stone's house before sunrise at around 6:00 this morning. They raided his home and they arrested Roger Stone. Here is a moment of that arrest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI, open the door. FBI, warrant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The indictment reveals Stone saw stolen e- mails from WikiLeaks that could damage Donald Trump's opponents at the direction of a senior Trump campaign official. Let's get right to CNN's Sara Murray who broke this story less than an hour ago. Sara, Tell us what you've learned.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you showed the video there. I mean, this was a huge surprise I can tell you to Roger Stone as well as his legal team that he was arrested this morning. He has been a target of this investigation for essentially almost two years. But he had never been contacted by Mueller's office up until this point.

Now, shortly after this -- them showing up at his home, the Special Counsel's office did put out a statement acknowledging his arrest saying he's been charged with seven counts, one of obstruction of justice, five counts of making false statements and one count of witness tampering.

Now, Roger Stone has insisted throughout this that he was innocent. Obviously we have not heard from him this morning since he's been taken into custody. But I think one of the things we were talking about earlier is, you know, these are counts that really did do have to do with how he has behaved throughout the course of this investigation, not to the central question of collusion.

Although when you dig into the indictment, it does begin to reveal that Roger Stone was in contact with members of the Trump campaign throughout this election. Seemingly that suggest that, you know, he knew what was coming from WikiLeaks that WikiLeaks had damaging information about the Clinton campaign.

You know, obviously, these are just the early details we're getting on this. But Roger Stone is expected to be arraigned this morning. We are expecting to see him in Fort Lauderdale in court at 11:00 a.m. And so, we'll probably get more information on the situation then, John.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely, Sara. Please stand by for us as we watch this video. There is Roger Stone, so in the doorway, if we put that back up, that is Roger Stone being awoken by these FBI agents and I'd say riot gear. It's actually just flap jackets. They're wearing bullet proof vests. One had a helmet on.

These are -- I mean, they don't -- agent they wear that when they don't know what they're going to encounter and it is just remarkable, Anne, to see this because this is not how anyone else connected to the Robert Mueller investigation has been arrested. Not Paul Manafort. This is not a civilized. Let's walk into the courthouse with our attorney. This is something quite different.

ANNE MILGRAM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's right. When someone's represented by Counsel as a rule and you believe that they'll be cooperative, they'll come into court, they'll voluntarily surrender, you say the way it look, your client's been indicted, please come in.

Here, Mueller's team had reason to believe that would not be the case. And so, they've gone to something and this is a standard procedure to arrest someone when who you don't, you know, you don't have a belief that they've come in voluntarily. It could be that they're afraid he'll flee, it could be that there's evidence, they're afraid he would destroy and they clearly wanted the element of surprise. They're going in at the crack of dawn with agents fully armed and that's -- there's a reason. We don't know that fully yet, but there's a reason they did that.

BERMAN: Let's bring a whole group of people into this succession. David Gregory is here, Nia-Malika Henderson, Joe Lockhart, you just heard from Anne Milgram, John Avlon here as well. Let me read you two paragraphs in this 24-page indictment here that are new.

New connections outlined here between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, the hacked e-mails, "By in or around June and July 2016, Stone informed senior Trump campaign officials that he had information indicating organization one", WikiLeaks, "had documents who's release would be damaging to the Clinton campaign. The head of organization", that's WikiLeaks, "organization one was located at all relevant times at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, United Kingdom."

Now this, "After the July 22nd, 2016 release of stolen DNC e-mails by WikiLeaks, a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information WikiLeaks had regarding the Clinton campaign. Stone thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by organization one."

David Gregory, the words Trump campaign and WikiLeaks all over those two paragraphs right there, the Trump campaign Robert Mueller's team was aware of and directing at a certain level coordination with WikiLeaks. DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And we expect that Mueller will establish that these hacks were conducted by the Russians. And that WikiLeaks was passing them off. So they are the link to the Trump campaign.

If we pull back even farther, we understand something that we've understood for months which is the Trump campaign was open for business for any oppo (ph) research, whether it was from the Russians or anybody else and that's a key piece in all of this. And I think that is what is consistent.

[07:05:15] There will be a question as to whether or anyone actually knew that the Russians were responsible for these hacks at this particular time. But this becomes a key point in trying to understand what the link was between the campaign and Russian who were actually involved in trying to interfere with the election. And Roger Stone is alleged to have been this middleman.

Somebody who's got the experience in the dark arts of campaigns and dirty tricks and his predictions and e-mails about this is when the Hillary campaign will die. This is the kind of person who the President, the candidate at the time had close.

BERMAN: Can I just say in terms of filling in the timeline here, everyone knew that the Russians had hacked the DNC by that point. At least they've been told by the DNC that that was the case.

GREGORY: Right.

BERMAN: It was June 14th, 2016, that the DNC publicly announced it had been hacked by what they believed to be Russian government actors. So a full month before, you know, the Trump campaign is directing contact with WikiLeaks on this, theoretically they knew.

CAMEROTA: John Avlon, you've been pouring through this. What jumps out?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I just want -- I want to really focus on that one sentence that John just threw up because there's a key point. A senior trump official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and whatever damaging information organization on WikiLeaks had.

By whom? That's the key point in this sentence. That may be the most significant sentence and open question in this document. And there's a lot of new information from timelines to text messages and e-mails. You really get a glimpse into Roger Stone's Nixonee Psyche. But this -- that is the key question that this raises.

CAMEROTA: Joe Lockhart, I can't -- this video is so, you know, attention grabbing. It's just -- it tells you that Robert Mueller believed that they needed the element of surprise. They did it in the cover of darkness. They did it with a big team of people. Many of us as reporters have gone along on ride along with cops and FBI agents when they do this. It is a heart pounding moment for the person whose door it's pounding on and the people who are pounding on that door. JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, and I expect that Trump symphatizers to jump all over, you know, the jackbooted thugs coming in. It reminds me a little bit and we're going back in time of the Elian Gonzalez where, you know, they were -- these people's going in to take a child. What we didn't talk about at the time is, is we had very good Intel that people inside that house that were both armed and drinking heavily. And no one wants to put an FBI agent in jeopardy for optics.

So you'll always take picture and I think they must have had Intel that there either was something in that house, maybe he owned firearms, maybe there was evidence that he could get rid of and that's why they did that.

CAMEROTA: And I think that the counter to when we will invariably hear the Stone supporters say look at this, you know, whatever they're going to say, that's not how any of the other people connected to Robert Mueller's investigation had been arrested. That has been as civilized, you walk in with your attorney as possible.

LOCKHART: And I think it goes to how Roger Stone has dealt with the Special Counsel and, you know, and how his legal team has, they have not been cooperative. He has gone on television and taunted them.

One of the point picking up on John and what David said, we can't talk about this as opposition research. This is opposition research to something that I've done my entire life, which is combing through Google and newspapers and files. This is a foreign government hacking a candidate for President in an attempt to influence our election and to bring that candidate down. That's not opposition research. That's criminal behavior.

BERMAN: Can I tell you who agrees with you in this case? The Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has called WikiLeaks, he says, it is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often embedded by state actors like Russia. And now we have been told by Robert Mueller's team that the Trump campaign was trying to make contact and coordinate with a non- state hostile intelligence service often embedded by state actors like Russia.

Can I make one other point as we're watching this video of the FBI raid on Roger Stone's house this morning?

I don't think these FBI agents are getting paid. I think these are right now furloughed FBI workers working without a salary doing their job, showing up to work without pay and that job today involves taking into custody and arresting someone very close to the President.

Jeffrey Toobin, our chief legal analyst joins us right now. Also happens to be someone who's written extensively about Roger Stone. This is a day people saw coming, Jeffrey? What's your take.

[07:10:03] JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Roger, I mean, Roger. No, you're not Roger. Berman, I was just in that house two weeks ago. I am a in a little bit of shock watching this video. It's, you know, I have known Roger Stone for a very long time. I wrote a long profile of him 10 years ago in "The New Yorker." I, you know, I'm working on a story about him now and I was just in the house. And it's really a shocking, but like so much in these past two years, this is shocking but not surprising.

He is been taunting the Mueller investigation for months. He has -- he admittedly was in close touch with people close to WikiLeaks, if not with WikiLeaks itself in the period leading up to the 2016 election. He didn't think he was going to get indicted, but he knew it was a possibility. And here we are.

CAMEROTA: You know there's someone else who knew that what Roger Stone was doing at the time for the campaign was wrong, according to this, and that was Roger Stone. Here is page nine, letter d. Later on that day on or about October 4th, 2016, the supporter involved with the Trump campaign asked Stone via text message if he'd heard anymore from London. Stone replied, "Yes, want to talk on a secure line? Got WhatsApp?"

Stone subsequently told the supporter that more material would be released and that it would be damaging to the Clinton campaign. Nia, that tells you when somebody wants to speak on a secure line if they know this is not on the up and up what they're trying to do.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANCHOR: I think that's right and it's pretty obvious here. You have that in the indictment here, him trying to do this in secret. There were times of publicly he did talk about this. He did seem to essentially predict what WikiLeaks was going to do, what was going to come next. It's going to be I think he said Podesta's time in the barrel next and then it was.

But this is a fascinating document. You know, to Avalon's point, this idea that someone in the Trump campaign actually directed another senior campaign official to have Stone reach out to this organization, WikiLeaks, and the idea that Stone at some point comes to the campaign officials, we don't know how many officials that is. Obviously we know that Manafort was sharing poll data with folks over in Russia or ties to Russia. But this, I think, is a red letter day in terms of the conversation around this investigation.

We'll of course have to wait and see what the President will say about this. He on the campaign trail basically talks about WikiLeaks a lot and said oh, WikiLeaks is great, what they're doing is fantastic. We've also seen him distance himself from some of the folks that are in Mueller's site. It'll be interesting to see if he's able to do that.

He probably will try to do that with Roger Stone. But this indictment certainly suggests that even after Roger Stone officially left the campaign, he was certainly still in touch with folkss in that campaign in very major ways around WikiLeaks, at least this is what this indictment says. GREGORY: And John and Alisyn, as we look at these photos, right, nothing concentrates the mind like this kind of reality for you where you're brought into an investigation and you're actually charged criminally. And let's remember that whatever the President's response to this, whatever other sympathizers response to this, there's only one person who's going to put all of these pieces together for us and that's Mueller, ultimately through indictments, through a final report we'll see when it becomes public.

And I think the extent to which this goes inside the campaign about dealing with a foreign power seeking to interfere with our election is the critical point here and does Stone provide more information about who was involved? How close it got to the President? That's what's critical.

And I agree with the point that Joe Lockhart brought up about really understanding the distinction between opposition research and a foreign power seeking to interfere. What is striking to me is how the President has publicly said, you know, about the Trump Tower meeting, who wouldn't accept, you know, damaging information on your opponent?

So both the arrogance, the hubris and the ignorance about the distinction between just getting good Oppo research on your opponent in a foreign power trying to interfere, let alone whether there's other pieces of this that are about why there was a closer relationship with Russia that may have been about a financial relationship with Russia and business dealings with Russia. This is another critical piece now in what Mueller's starting to build, a sense of the overall and what it looks like.

BERMAN: We know that Donald Trump as a candidate talked regularly to Roger Stone. We know that, we had the campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski tell us it use to drive him crazy. They had conversations. Is he the person who directed that contact? Is the answer to by whom and this the president? We don't know.

Jeffrey Toobin, I saw you looking down pointing over this indictment. We were all present to these 24 pages just a few minutes ago and we've been looking through it. I want to know from you, you're a senior legal analyst here. Big picture, what is new from this? What do you see that jumps out to you? How does this change the story?

[07:15:15] TOOBIN: Its two things. One is the sheer number of people he was in touch with about WikiLeaks. Among the people who had been known to be in touch with him are Jerome Corsi, the writer of a conservative books who was also involved in these transactions. He's mentioned in here. Randy Credico, who was a New York radio host, he's the recipient of some of these e-mails here.

But the big news this indictment is the reference to people in the Trump campaign. Those people were outsiders. The -- what we're going to have to figure out or way to find out is who was Stone talking to on the inside of the campaign? Because that's what's really the potentially explosive thing here.

You know, its one thing to talk about these various sort of people who were around the -- around the Trump campaign but not part of it like Corsi. But if he was -- if Stone was in touch with people in the campaign and of course with candidate Trump himself because they were, you know, in regular touch by telephone. That would be an explosive development if of course Mueller could prove it.

CAMEROTA: We've been watching this -- Jeffrey, I just want to put up the video again because we're watching.

This is exclusive CNN video. This is what happened this morning before sunrise just before 6:00 A.M, when Roger Stone long-time Trump associate and adviser was taken into custody by the FBI. There's was a moment of audio on here that I want to play for everyone because this is what the first sound that Roger Stone woke up to this morning was the FBI pounding on his door and shouting this. I want to just play this for a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI, open the door. FBI, warrant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: And you point out that when the second time when they say FBI, warrant, you'd like to know if that meant search warrant or arrest warrant.

MILGRAM: I mean it's clear there's an arrest warrant because he's been indicted. And the question I think is, did they serve another warrant, a search warrant at the same time. And, you know, we'll know that I think probably soon enough if the agents stayed and went into the house and spent time there. The answer will be probably, yes. If they all left when they took him -- Stone out then the answers probably, no.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: You've also been pouring through this. And just so people know maybe why the FBI should have enforced. They alleged high-level obstruction here by Roger Stone. The expense he went. So, to lie and deceive and to dodge and to temper according to his indictment --

MILGRAM: Is extraordinary.

BERMAN: Right.

MILGRAM: Right. And I think it's worth pointing out when Jeff just pointed out the volume of contacts. There are an extraordinary -- it this isn't one conversation with Trump camp. This isn't one communication with WikiLeaks. But then when you look at the obstruction, there are text messages, information included here where he is actively saying to people, you know, John's going to quote Richard Nixon I think but --

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: What an extraordinary example. Roger Stone infamously has in upper back tattoo of Richard Nixon. He worked for him, he considers him the examplar. When a person two, says he want to speak is to his lawyer, Randy Credico apparently Stone replies, "Stonewall it, plead the Fifth, anything to save the plan, that's Richard Nixon". Quoting, Richard Nixon telling him to shut up in effect.

And when person two later, you know, flips and is apparently talking to lawyers, Stone communicates, "You're a rat, a stoolie. You backstab your friends". He also threatens to, "Take that dog away from you". Apparently threatening the man's pet. I'm so ready, let's get it on and prepared to die, expletive.

BERMAN: He also quotes Frank Pentangeli.

GREGORY: Yes. Then Godfather two was referred to in this.

LOCKHART: But I think if he know on how campaigns work. There's always in every -- I've worked in five presidential campaigns. There's always someone who's been with the candidate from the beginning. And that person is always a huge pain for the rest of the staff.

And I'm not going to name names here, but they have the candidates here. But importantly, they don't have the rest of the staffs here. Those people call, you ignore them. It could be the candidate's brother. It could be someone they grew up with.

Roger Stone is the person who is at ground zero of Donald Trump's political career. He's the guy who planted the idea, you can be President of the United States. And my guess is, it's a very small circle of people who could be the one that we're talking about here.

CAMEROTA: Who directed Roger Stone.

LOCKHART: Yes. And Donald Trump is in that circle.

CAMEROTA: Yes, go ahead Jeffrey.

[07:20:03] TOOBIN: Well, you know, I don't know if they had a search warrant as we know when if they certainly have an arrest warrant. But if they had a search warrant, one thing they're going to find is this.

I happened to keep this in my and my brief case and I just noticed this morning. One way Roger is fundraising is he is selling these stones. Get it, Roger Stone, autographed Stones? And there are two big boxes of them there in his house. And I think if you send him 10 bucks he'll send you a Roger Stone.

CAMEROTA: Are those bringing in a loft of money, a lot of funds?

TOOBIN: You know, it's hard to sell that many Stones. But it gives you some idea of sort of how Roger operates. I mean, you know, and, you know, I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this. But, you know, there is a likable rogue aspect to Roger Stone.

BERMAN: Yes, but we got to good to break here.

TOOBIN: Yes. BERMAN: They're going to cut my head off if --

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: No but I'm going to seek one last question in to you.

CAMEROTA: Give us all a Stone.

BERMAN: Will supporters look through this? Will Trump supporters look through this and say, OK, seven counts here but he's not charged with collusion or conspiracy? Is that argument available here?

TOOBIN: Yes, actually. I think people will say this is yet another -- this is a term I just heard process crime. That it is lying to Mueller but it is not the underlying offense of colluding with Russia.

Now, you're not in great shape if you are parsing the kinds of crimes with which people in your campaign are charged with. But, you know, I do think it is true that this is all under the rubric of obstruction rather than the underlying substance of crime. But, what he's lying about may be the underlying crime. That's what we're going to learn.

CAMEROTA: People often get in trouble for the cover-up.

TOOBIN: So they say.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we've heard that.

TOOBIN: So they say.

CAMEROTA: OK, mega panel, thank you all very much for helping us sort through all of this breaking news.

BERMAN: Again, we saw it happen. The video exclusive to CNN moments here just after 6:00 A.M. Roger Stone, the President's political confidant arrested by the FBI. What it means for the Mueller investigation when we return?

(BEGIN VIDE CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI, open the door.

(END VIDE CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:26:22] CAMEROTA: We do have breaking news. This is the CNN exclusive video of Roger Stone being arrested by the FBI this morning. These are FBI agents. You can see them in protective gear approaching in the cover of darkness Roger Stone's door. That is Roger Stone that you can see through the door as the agents pounded on his door and said, FBI, warrant.

They arrested Roger Stone. He has been indicted by Robert Mueller's team on seven counts. And this was the scene that our CNN cameras captured exclusively as they approached his door at his home before sunrise this morning. Joining us now is CNN producer David Shortell, he was on the scene when this happened in Fort Lauderdale. Tell us everything that transpired this morning.

DAVID SHORTELL, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Alisyn, an extraordinary morning: We were here at 5:00 a.m. waiting for whatever was going to happen. It was dark at 6:00 a.m. just after the hour. About a half dozen police vehicles with sirens but no sounds. Silent sirens pull in front of this Fort Lauderdale home where Roger Stone was presumably asleep but lights were off in the house.

About a dozen officers, FBI agents wearing tactical vests and with large weapons fanned out across his front lawn. One went up to the house and rapped on the door shined a flashlight inside. And said FBI, open the door.

Moments later as you heard in the video, it said FBI, warrant. That's what the agent said. We then saw a light go on the second floor and moments later there was Roger Stone in the doorway. That was our video exclusively you saw shot by Gill De La Rosa. An extraordinary arrest here in Fort Lauderdale this morning.

CAMEROTA: What was Roger Stone's reaction? Did you watch them take him into custody?

SHANTELL: We were being moved away as it was happening. We were trying to bring you as much as we could as it was happening. We saw Roger Stone come to the door obscured by an FBI agent. He was not wearing his usual attire which is as we know these fancy suits. He was in sleep wear.

He had his glasses on. He did say yes, I'm Roger Stone. And then we removed before saw them. Actually take him into custody. But many lights, heavy weaponry, they were taking him away for what we now know is a pretty hefty indictment.

CAMEROTA: Could you hear Roger Stone saying anything? Was there any kind of discussion between the agents in Roger Stone?

SHANTELL: The agent asked him, are you Roger Stone? And he confirmed yes. That was the extent of the discussion that we were able to over hear from our perch before we've removed.

But it was friendly. As you know, some of these warrants, these arrest, this middle of the night operations like this who don't know we goes smoothly. This went smoothly. The operators, the FBI agents fanned out across his land silently before they shined that flashlight in and then for started shouting FBI, open the door. Roger Stone appeared to surrender without any issue.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. I mean when the FBI takes this approach, it's because they think there's a possibility of the arrest not going smoothly. I mean, that's why they take all of those precautions. But what's so fascinating is that we've talked to his attorney, the attorney didn't know this was coming. Clearly Roger Stone didn't know this was coming. You were staked out at his house, you didn't know that this was coming? Why were you there in position? SHANTELL: Alisyn, it's a reporter instinct. The whole Russia team thought maybe something was happening in there. There was some unusual grand jury activity in Washington DC yesterday. The grand jury and Robert Mueller's grand jury typically means on Friday's, yesterday. Thursday there was grand jury activity. We also had some other signs and maybe something was going on this angle, the Roger Stone angle.