More on the Stone arrest

Citing details in emails and other forms of communications, the indictment suggests Mr. Trump’s campaign knew about additional stolen emails before they were released and asked Mr. Stone to find out about them.

Mr. Stone’s lawyer, Grant Smith, dismissed the charges, calling them “ridiculous,” and said, “this is all about a minor charge about lying to Congress about something that was apparently found later.”

  NYT

Keep telling yourself that.

Mr. Stone, a self-described dirty trickster, began his career as a campaign aide for Richard M. Nixon and has a tattoo of Nixon on his back. He has spent decades plying the political dark arts including scandal-mongering to help influence American election campaigns, and has long maintained that he had no connection to Russia’s attempts to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. He sometimes seemed to taunt American law enforcement agencies, daring them to find hard evidence to link him to the Russian election interference.

I bet they're loving this moment. Any time you can take down a taunting smartass, it's a good day.

According to the indictment, between June and July of 2016, Mr. Stone told “senior Trump campaign officials” about the stolen emails in WikiLeaks’ possession that could be damaging to Mrs. Clinton. On July 22, WikiLeaks released its first batch of Democratic emails. After that, according to the indictment, the Trump campaign sought more.

“A senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton campaign,” the indictment said, referring to WikiLeaks. The indictment did not make clear who directed the senior campaign official to reach out to Mr. Stone, though it left open the possibility that it was Mr. Trump.

[...]

In October, Mr. Stone exchanged emails with Stephen K. Bannon, then the chief executive of Mr. Trump’s campaign. In one exchange, Mr. Stone wrote that more WikiLeaks disclosures were forthcoming, “a load every week going forward,” according to the indictment. Mr. Bannon appears to be the official described in the court document as “the high-ranking Trump Campaign official,” based on previous disclosures about the email exchange.

And I'm assuming there's an indictment with his name on it in the near future.

No collusion.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

According to several published reports, the "senior Trump campaign official" mentioned here was Steve Bannon, which makes the phrase "was directed to contact Stone" even more intriguing. At that point in the campaign, the universe of people who could "direct" Bannon to do anything was a tiny one, and several of them had the same last name.

  Charles P Pierce