Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Turning now to
Speaker 1: a stunning development in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation,
Speaker 1: the arrest of Roger Stone, a longtime Republican strategist and
Speaker 1: sometimes confidante of President Trump, for obstruction, witness tampering, and
Speaker 1: false statements. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders responded to
Speaker 1: a reporter's question about whether the President encouraged any of
Speaker 1: Stone's alleged illegal activity. That is probably one of the
Speaker 1: more ridiculous and insulting questions to accuse the President of
Speaker 1: the United States of asking someone to break the law. Um,
Speaker 1: that is frankly, it's just insulting. It's just not true.
Speaker 1: Joining me, is Brad Moss, a partner at Mark sade
Speaker 1: Brett looking at the indictment of Roger Stone, Tell me,
Speaker 1: on a scale of one to ten, how important this
Speaker 1: is for Muller's investigation. This is pretty much what I
Speaker 1: would say is an eight. You know, the way I
Speaker 1: read this indictment, this is the speaking indictment. Robert Mueller's
Speaker 1: team laid out a lot of facts in the background
Speaker 1: that weren't actually necessary or critical to the underlying charges,
Speaker 1: which were all processed crimes. It was obstruction, you know,
Speaker 1: fallse statements, witness tampering. But he provided all this background
Speaker 1: detail about what Roger Stone was doing during the campaign,
Speaker 1: in particular how senior officials in the Trump campaign, which
Speaker 1: as far as later reporting is born out, was Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: were directed to coordinate with Stone on all WITCHI Leaks
Speaker 1: related matters, which of course brings out the question, this
Speaker 1: is what Mueller is hinting at, who was the person
Speaker 1: who directed Steve Bennon to coordinate with Stone. There's probably
Speaker 1: about five people on the planet who could have directed
Speaker 1: Steve Bennon to do anything. All their last names are
Speaker 1: either Trump or Cushner. So this is Mueller thinking at
Speaker 1: what where this is going, hinting at what he's got
Speaker 1: coming down the pike. He did this indictment, he could
Speaker 1: obviously amend it a superseding indictment if Roger Stone decided
Speaker 1: not to cut a deal What the question remains is
Speaker 1: how much does roger Stone have and what would he
Speaker 1: be willing to cut a deal for now. Roger Stone
Speaker 1: came out of court on bond of two fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: He said that he will not quote their false witness
Speaker 1: against the President. He did not answer whether or not
Speaker 1: he would cooperate with the Muller investigation, saying his lawyers
Speaker 1: hadn't been contacted and he didn't want to address that.
Speaker 1: Do things change when you've been arrested? Absolutely, your calculus changes.
Speaker 1: And this is even the first time we've heard stuff
Speaker 1: like this from a Trump associate member. What Michael Cohen
Speaker 1: used to say, I'll take up bullet for the president.
Speaker 1: You know what, the moment indictment show up, the moment
Speaker 1: you faced the prospect of time in a four by
Speaker 1: four cell without your freedom, your calculus changes. Roger Stone
Speaker 1: is not a young man anymore. He's sixty six years old.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to spend it twilight years in a
Speaker 1: four by four cell. Once the shock of this immediate
Speaker 1: moment has worn off, and the prosecution team from Mueller's
Speaker 1: office coordinates with his defense attorneys and lays out a
Speaker 1: lot of their evidence, a lot of which I bet
Speaker 1: you is not in this indictment. Yet, there will be
Speaker 1: a choice for Roger Stone to make. Is it worth it?
Speaker 1: Is he ready to take the fall or is he
Speaker 1: going to cooperate? No, one's going to ask him to lie.
Speaker 1: If he's got reliable, legitimate, corroborated material evidence he can
Speaker 1: provide Mueller's team, they'll take it the look to cut
Speaker 1: him a deal. If he doesn't have anything, there's no
Speaker 1: deal to be made. And that's alway always the sixty
Speaker 1: four dollar question. Roger Stone loves the blow viate, he
Speaker 1: loves the hype. He may not actually have anything else
Speaker 1: to provide, and if that's the case, then he's going
Speaker 1: to go to jail. What about his contacts with wiki links?
Speaker 1: There's no specific charge related to that. Correct. What was
Speaker 1: laid out in the factual background provided some of the
Speaker 1: elements of where you could see a potential criminal charge
Speaker 1: or two coming down the pike. There's a potential for
Speaker 1: because of the outlined how the campaign, specifically senior campaign
Speaker 1: officials are directly using Stone as an intermediary to get
Speaker 1: advanced knowledge and the coordinate production of hacked materials from
Speaker 1: wiki leaks. There's a potential criminal conspiracy charge they're regarding
Speaker 1: campaign finance felonies in terms of securing something of value
Speaker 1: from a foreign national aid Julian Assange for the purpose
Speaker 1: of influencing the election. And there's a potential criminal conspiracy
Speaker 1: to defraud the United States charge in terms of interfering
Speaker 1: in the administration of the election by bringing in hacked
Speaker 1: illegally hacked information. These are two potential criminal conspiracy charges
Speaker 1: that could be brought out in superseding indictments. What remains
Speaker 1: to be seen is what else does Mohler have. Does
Speaker 1: he believe he's got enough to actually make that charge
Speaker 1: stick as a matter of law and in court, and
Speaker 1: is he holding on that is leverage to try to
Speaker 1: see if Stone will crack and will make a deal
Speaker 1: to cooperate. Now, Stone's arrest was different from the other
Speaker 1: arrest in the Mueller investigation. FBI agents arriving at dawn
Speaker 1: than executing a search warrant, and when he was outside
Speaker 1: the courthouse he said he was terrorized. Of course, he
Speaker 1: also said that FBI agents were extraordinarily courteous. What does
Speaker 1: it say that Muller did not allow him to turn
Speaker 1: himself in. They had a real legitimate fear, as outlined
Speaker 1: in motion that was separately filed. What's why the indictment
Speaker 1: was originally under sealed. They had a legitimate fear that
Speaker 1: roger Stone would run, that he would destroy evidence, that
Speaker 1: he would flee. And roger Stone, because of his reputation,
Speaker 1: he is the political dirty tricks guy. He's not Paul Manafort,
Speaker 1: He's not RICKI. Roger Stone's ethos is m O is
Speaker 1: dirty tricks. The government could not take that risk. What
Speaker 1: the public saw with that pre don raid, that is
Speaker 1: not you sual. But it's not unusual either. That happens
Speaker 1: a lot in various criminal cases. It happens when you
Speaker 1: have a suspect that you can't risk them fleeing, you
Speaker 1: can't risk them destroying evidence. The amount of people involved,
Speaker 1: that's entirely routine. It doesn't happen a lot with white
Speaker 1: collar criminals. Tends to happen for more blue collar, more
Speaker 1: drug related or gun related charges. But it is still
Speaker 1: a normal part of police enforcement. You just don't see
Speaker 1: it every day. And so people went, oh, my lord,
Speaker 1: it's so shocking. No, it's really not. Roger Stone did
Speaker 1: not answer questions about whether he was waiting for a pardon,
Speaker 1: or he would ask for a pardon. Could that be
Speaker 1: in the back of his mind? Absolutely? Absolutely. If you're
Speaker 1: Roger Stone, especially if you think that this is all
Speaker 1: just federal charges and mostly just process crimes, there's an
Speaker 1: element to which you're wondering, how long can you hold out,
Speaker 1: how many how much money do you get saved up
Speaker 1: to try to tow the line, gets the present to
Speaker 1: pardon you, and you can spend the next fifteen years
Speaker 1: making money in speeches talking about how you stood up
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. All right, thanks so much, Brad. As always,
Speaker 1: that's Brad Moss. He is a partner at Mark's Sade.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can
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Speaker 1: and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Grosso.
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