Roger Stone seems to be having a major panic attack these days.
Roger Stone has been on Alex Jones’s wigged-out right wing radio show saying the most extraordinary things. Stone is a close confidant of Trump, and if Stone is talking this way, we can be sure that Trump is listening. This is truly scary stuff. 1/12
2/12
The fact that Stone is talking this way is probably a pretty good indication that he realizes that Trump is very likely to lose, so extraordinary steps may be needed to keep Trump in power. 3/12
But I think there is something else behind this that concerns Stone specifically and personally. (The following assumes that Trump will in fact lose the election.) 4/12
Many seem to assume that Stone no longer has criminal liability in Trump-Russia because Trump commuted his sentence, and because presidential pardons and commutations are irreversible. 5/12
This seems to me to be mistaken. (Caveat: I am not a lawyer.) That is because (1) Stone’s convictions were over very specific charges of lying to Congress (on specific dates etc.), and (2) because Trump could not pardon or commute *future* crimes by Stone. 6/12
That being the case, it seems to me that Congress could put Stone under oath *again* and ask him the *very same questions*: as if to say, “Okay, now tell us the truth this time or we will make a criminal referral to the DOJ for perjuring yourself a second time.” 7/12
In fact, the DOJ could impanel a grand jury and put the same questions to Stone. (This would be even better, and if the DOJ did this, Congress would probably be well-advised to recede in favor of the Department, as too many cooks can spoil the broth.) 8/12
*Even more threatening*: either Congress or the DOJ could ask questions that Congress did not ask about Trump’s, Stone’s, and the campaign’s engagement with Wikileaks,
Including incriminating evidence (much of it still redacted) that appears in the Mueller Report. 9/12
I think this is one reason why Stone is talking fascist, authoritarian trash these days. It’s not simply that Stone is just fascist, authoritarian trash in and out of season. 10/12
It’s also that he knows he faces the very real possibility of either having to spill *all* the beans or dying in jail if Trump loses the election. 11/12
As I’ve said, I’m not a lawyer. So it would be nice if knowledgeable legal experts like @glennkirscher2 weighed in on this, particularly with regard to tweets 6 and 7 above. 12/12
