Roger Stone guilty on charges of lying to Congress

WASHINGTON ― Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime practitioner of the political dark arts, was found guilty on Friday of lying to Congress.

Stone was accused of intimidating a witness and lying to congressional investigators who were looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He was found guilty on all seven counts he was charged with, including witness tampering and giving numerous false statements to lawmakers about his communications with WikiLeaks.

Both publicly and in communications with Trump campaign officials, Stone purported to have connections to WikiLeaks, which released stolen information that was damaging to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. WikiLeaks published emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee in July 2016 and published Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails in October 2016.

A federal prosecutor told jurors that Stone lied to Congress about his interactions with WikiLeaks intermediaries and Trump campaign officials “because the truth looked bad for Donald Trump.” Other members of the Trump campaign testified that they believed Stone had inside information on WikiLeaks, with one former official testifying that Trump indicated WikiLeaks would be releasing more information after he got off the phone with Stone in July 2016.

Prosecutors also said Stone tried to intimidate Randy Credico, a radio host he tried to convince not to cooperate with government investigations.

Stone was indicted in January as part of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign interference in the election. Stone pleaded not guilty, then found himself in trouble with the court for his social media comments on his case as well as the Mueller probe.

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