Roger Stone, confidant of Trump and the WikiLeaks connection, pleaded guilty in all seven cases
The GOP operative was accused in 2016 of pursuing Russian-hacked emails for false statements, obstruction and witness tampering.
Republican operative Roger Stone was convicted Friday of all seven cases against him, including witness tampering and making false statements.
Prosecutors portrayed Stone, 67, as a serial liar who tried to bully witnesses into not cooperating with authorities. He accused a confidant of President Donald Trump of misrepresenting, obstructing, and witness-tampering during the Russia investigation of Special Counsel Robert Muller in one such case.
Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser convicted of the charges brought as part of Muller's investigation.
His sentence was set for 6 February, and he was jailed for up to 20 years. The jury deliberated for two days.
Soon after the announcement of the decision, Trump tweeted, "Asked what about Hillary Clinton, James Comey, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and others". "Didn't they lie?"
So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
The color trial in Washington lasted for about two weeks and, in the context of "The Godfather Part II", Dognapping threats, food poisoning complaints and a gag order.
Stone was arrested in an FBI raid on the morning of January and misled by the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 to try to find out when the hacked emails from the WikiLeaks Democratic Party and Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign were released Will do.
The prosecution on Tuesday pacified their case with the testimony of former FBI agent Michelle Taylor. He was called back to the Intelligence Committee to testify about Stone's testimony, particularly when he told the panel about his views about a possible connection between Guccifer 2.0 and the Russian government.
The trial included various former Trump aides including former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and onetime Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, who argued with Muller.
Bannon told the jury that he saw Stone as "an access point" for WikiLeaks.
Gates testified that it was his understanding that Stone had non-republican information in WikiLeaks' operation, and that the campaign worked on it.
It was hacked after the DNC announced it and WikiLeaks planned a news conference, with the campaign having a "brainstorming" session as to what to do with the information. Gates said that the president of the Trump campaign at the time, Paul Manafort, who was convicted in the Muller investigation earlier this year, told him that he would update Trump with any information he might find from Stone.
The jury also saw an email between Gates and Stone following which the DNC announced that it had been hacked. In it, Stone asks for contact information of Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
In late July 2016, Gates testified, he was in the car when Trump received a phone call from Stone. After the call, Trump told Gates that "more information about WikiLeaks is coming".
"It's a big message about the truth," said Mimi Mimi, a lawyer in the Southern District of New York and a former assistant to MSNBC legal analyst, about the guilty verdict. "The public has been watching people lie for so long and the jury is saying that facts are still a big deal."
Stone, confidant Trump and self-described "dirty trickster" for more than 30 years, has been a famous Republican operative dating for President Richard Nixon's campaign. Stone also served as an adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign and described the case against him as politically motivated.