It’s Mueller Friday! TGIMF!! Remember where you were one week ago, when the FBI executed a pre-dawn raid at Roger Stone’s house in Florida? Remember the SWAT tactical gear and the feeling of elation? Good times. As I’m writing this in the wee hours of Friday, I’m hoping that this Mueller Friday brings us more indictments, but all we have right now are rumors of upcoming moves, possibly against Jerome Corsi (a Stone associate), possibly against Don Trump Jr. While there’s been a lot of talk about the pre-dawn full-SWAT tactical raid of Roger Stone’s home and whether it was necessary (it was necessary!), it’s worth noting that there was a purpose to the whole thing: the FBI and Robert Mueller were executing a search warrant, and it paid off. BIGLY. Voluminously!!
Federal investigators probing Roger Stone, the former Trump campaign official indicted last week in the Russia probe, have seized multiple hard drives containing years of communication records from cellphones and email accounts, the special counsel’s office said Thursday. Robert Mueller’s prosecutors, in a new court filing, described the evidence as “voluminous and complex” in asking a judge to delay his trial to give them more time to sift through the seized devices.
The court papers said investigators grabbed hard drives containing several terabytes of information, including “FBI case reports, search warrant applications and results (e.g., Apple iCloud accounts and email accounts), bank and financial records, and the contents of numerous physical devices (e.g., cellular phones, computers, and hard drives).”
The FBI is doing what it calls a “filter review” of the devices, setting aside any evidence that cannot be admissible in court because it is considered privileged. During a press conference Thursday, Stone agreed that evidence is voluminous and complex, and said both parties had agreed to the language in the government’s filing.
Again, it feels like a matter of WHEN not IF Roger Stone will turn to save his own skin. That was the thing about so many of the Watergate douchebags – they were sniveling little frat boys who would sell out their own mother for a lighter sentence.
Meanwhile, there’s been so much chatter about Don Trump Jr. in the past week. I believe that when all is said and done, Don will be indicted on many charges. It probably won’t happen today, on this holy TGIMF. But remember those mysterious calls Don Jr. made ahead of the Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives in 2016? People assumed Don was calling his father to let him know what was happening, but now Senate investigators believe Don was actually calling “business associates” outside of the family.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Avalon Red.
Donald ‘S&L’ Trump Jr
Lol. “Moron” barely scratches the surface as a descriptor for Junior. I cannot, cannot wait for the day the FBI brings this punk in.
I think Jr will be among the last indicted. The case against him needs to be air tight so they are going to take their time. I think world class sleaze bags Corsi and Credico are next.
Megan – I think Credico has been cooperating for a long time. He has already testified to a grand jury, with his little therapy dog by his side (she might well be a therapy dog, Credico seems to have anxiety and related problems big time when I’ve seen him interviewed). He’s the one who was threatened by Stone to try to prevent him from testifying. Stone threatened to take his adorable little dog Bianca and Stone went on to say that Credico couldn’t do anything to stop him. I don’t think Credico will hold back anything to cover for Stone…
Justice for Bianca! Stay safe, girl.
Someone once described the case as multi ringed. So Mueller works from the outer circle all the way to the inner circle (bulls eye). He nabs the small time thieves then he’ll work his way inside each circle. Jr. and Jared, Complicit Barbie. The bulls eye is the orange yam himself. That totally makes sense.
The whole news leak of who Jr might have called before the Trump Tower/Russia meeting seems like an attempt to divert from the real question of who he called AFTER the meeting.
Or DURING
Wondering if the Big Orange was on a video conference call via a laptop in The Room Where It Happened.
Trump Sr. had Secret Service protection by then, making his physical presence problematic. But people who know him say he’s a micromanager and it seems unlikely that he 1) wouldn’t know about the meeting and 2) would let doofus Junior do it without him, even though Manafort and Kushner were there.
Or trotted upstairs to visit in person.
ding ding ding
And Trump was tweeting like crazy last night about the “witch hunt.” Makes me wonder if the noose is tightening around Jr.
trump must have some graphic photos of lindsey graham with twelve year old boys to turn him into the craven butt licker he’s become. Now he’s pitching a hissy fit about the way poor widdle roger was arrested. What a 180.
I believe Putin has the photos and I believe 12 was the upper age range.
“upper age range” Simple words with such a painful impact.
There is no punishment good enough for him.
This is the going theory in my household; my husband and I are convinced this is the only thing that could have made Graham do such a 180. Only I think that if Cheeto has the goods on Graham, it was Putin who gave him the evidence.
I think Graham spends time at home practicing his “Kevin Spacey Moment” in a mirror and just like Spacey, he deludes himself into thinking coming out will distract & excuse sexual predation. And I really think his victims were very young.
Or he is on Russia’s payroll. I suspect a bunch of Trump supporters are getting laundered cash from Russia. And I think Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr are laundering a lot of it through their megachurches. Why else would they be ride or die for Trump?
Yup. Putin has very damning photos and I wouldn’t doubt it if they involved underage boys. I’d say that it’s sad to see what he’s become but this is the GOP. They are some of the worst people our country has ever seen.
I don’t think blackmail pics would have to involve underage boys. Anything that would indicate that he prefers men would do it for him with his constituency.
I have no idea if he does prefer men, though. Anybody who isn’t married or dating someone of the other sex gets those accusations. So I just don’t believe them unless the person actually says it’s true. Not everybody feels unfulfilled without an active
sex life. Heresy, I know.
Anyway, I would look to other possibilities to figure out what Trump has on him or what Trump is offering him.
Wait, are there rumors about Graham and boys that I haven’t heard about, or is this just speculation? Not that it would shock me because money hides the worst monsters in America, but I’m honestly curious, and it’s not a Google search I really want to do.
Veronica – I would bet on just mindless and baseless speculation.
I hope that they aren’t of any children and that if they excist that they are of consenting adults. If not then he is a monster and he should be burned.
I absolutely believe graham is compromised.. the 180 flip to dotard defender confirms it.
Remember he turned after he spent a weekend golfing with the yam. I wish McCain would rise from the grave to slap him.
Wonder why Stone didn’t destroy/try to destroy the voluminous evidence. He’s been expecting to be indicted for a long time.
I wonder the same thing, if anything meaningful or incriminating has long been destroyed.
Thus, I believe, the reason for the early morning raid. Also, I think Stone thought he was untouchable because Trump would pardon him and all that evidence wouldn’t matter.
Because Stone is such an arrogant a-hole it never occurred to him they would raid his house.
I would love to hear from others who understand this stuff better why Stone didn’t already destroy this stuff. He’s talked about knowing he was on the indictment list for ages. Or do we think he did destroy some stuff?
He’s Nixon stupid and didn’t learn from his “hero.”
Extortion material. In order to play Dirty Tricks, one must have dirt on others and he just couldn’t destroy it if he wanted to stay in the game. We are also not dealing with geniuses
I agree with @Lightpurple. Holding onto to this material for leverage sounds about right.
Also, my guess is that there was some magical thinking going on, too. If he made a lot of noise about knowing that he was going to be indicted but didn’t go home and do the quiet work of preparing himself and covering his tracks while he still could, then clearly it was never going to actually happen.
Too bad for him that Mueller called that bluff. Good for us, though. I hope they all rot in prison.
Also don’t you get the sense that they take a lot of pride in their misdeeds?
Also, material for later books/profiteering.
We need a special episode of Marie Kondo working with all these crooks and their storage lockers full of evidence. Sounds like Mueller is using the method. Maybe they threw the entirety of Paul Manafort’s overpriced wardrobe on a bed.
The FBI seems to avoid advertising it, but they have excellent file recovery software. I’m reasonably sure that they saw every one of Hillary’s “missing emails” and that’s why they were sure she was telling the truth. Deleting files only tells the computer it can reuse the space. We used to be told to overwrite the file space seven times to prevent recovery. Nowadays, we are told at least 20 to 30 times. Destroying the hard disk will remove the data, but anything less is iffy.
I used recovery software myself long ago when it was much more primitive, and was routinely able to recover usable parts of files even long after deletion. And that was in the days of relatively small hard disks, so the computer would have more need to reuse the space.
The question is if Stone knows this or if he just was intent on keeping everything for a future book. He may not have truly believed he would be raided because of his relationship with Trump. He is certainly assuming he will be pardoned if convicted.
If he did believe he would be raided, Stone also might plant false information on his computers. But he seemed to think he would be allowed to politely surrender himself if indicted, so maybe he really was caught by surprise. He’s rather arrogant.
There’s software readily available to wipe hard drives (including “free space”) to Department of Defense standards for data destruction. However, it’s obvious to any investigator that it’s been wiped, and of course intentional destruction of evidence, when you had reason to know it was evidence of criminal activity, is itself a crime. I have trouble imagining Roger Stone carefully wiping every device in his position and/or taking a power drill to his hard drives, though. As you say — arrogant.
The Other Katherine – yes, a hard disk can certainly be wiped with the right software to make it automatic. Although you also can just tell your disk utility program to overwrite with random zeroes and ones multiple times (which is probably how most people would do it, when you ask to erase a disk this is an option although other software would be needed to be more selective). But as you say, it would be suspicious.
Imagine if these people were as smart as they think they are.
Agree with everything you stated. At this point, I find it rather perplexing that these defendants think they’ll be able to lie their way out of Muller’s extensive indictments. Go ahead and try, Roger. You’ll just dig yourself an even deeper hole. Just like Maniford, I forsee this snake thinking he’s above the system, believing his lies will save him.
Nope. Game over. Mueller is maticulous AF. Good luck with that “Not Guilty” plea…Muuhahaha!
If he tries to destroy it, then they’ve got a spoliation charge (evidence destruction) to throw on top of the pile of charges that he’s already facing. It’s Rule #1 when you anticipate litigation: don’t destroy anything. It’ll only make it worse. If I were Stone’s attorney, I’d probably be telling him to wait and see if Mueller’s team can uncover/link together any of the damaging information and, in the meantime, devise a defense strategy for if/when that happens. Mind you, I’m hoping they nail all of these guys, but that’s what a defense attorney would likely counsel in this situation.
Whether Jr. called daddy before the meeting is irrelevant to proving Trump’s guilt/innocence. Trump was in the flipping building at the time and could easily have been present at the meeting, or listening via other means. Plus, don’t they have burner phones for this kind of stuff as well? There could be calls on such a phone.
If Trump really felt exonerated by Jr. not calling him, then why is he screaming so loudly about witch hunts? You only scream like that if you’re scared.
I’m thinking of old TV/movie plots where the big boss is elsewhere in the building, listening via a speaker system (not via phone).
If they did not phone or e-mail him, it may be harder to prove that he listened in or had an in-person discussion later. But lying and financial ties will end up being the real story anyway.
Yes, I agree with you, @Rapunzel. I think it’s more than mildly amusing that Cheeto believes that if he proves he has has nothing to do with the July meeting then he’s in the clear. As if it matters! This whole Russian mob-inspired boondoggle includes countless crimes that were carried out by Donald J. Trump himself. He’s going down like the rest of them.
Interesting how these guys act so tough and fearless, until they realize that a federal prison stint is their reality. Stone is already crumbling within days of the raid.
Wait—Senate investigators say he wasn’t calling daddy? The Senate controlled by the GOP?
Yeah, I’ll wait and see what the indictment says when it comes down.
Willing to wait here to see what House Intelligence says. Senator Burr – who took a lot of (Russian) NRA money – has been less than helpful.
Approaching Don Jr. is going to be tricky, I could see him keeping his kids at home and standing behind them to complain later that law enforcement was rough with his children.
He doesn’t have physical custody of his kids. He’ll have a scantily clad Kimberly Guilfoyle standing there screaming about police brutality.
Nagini is the one who will play sainted virgin, yet sexy, Madonna with her kids around her. Someone needs to tell her that Ethel Rosenberg had two very young children. Didn’t save her.
Now I’m envisioning her as a Byzantine icon with a rigid gold-leaf halo and the image will. not. leave.
Several TERABYTES of evidence?! That’s um… wow.
The depth of hubris one must possess to keep that much self-incriminating evidence in one’s possession is vast.
Leave it to Trump to surround himself with people who overestimate their own intelligence as much as he does.
Most of it is probably irrelevant. However, all the data stored on devices / account data seized as evidence must be sifted through (hence, terabytes). What’s interesting to me is that the volume of data suggests quite a bit of audiovisual material, even assuming that some of the evidence is just backup copies. It will be very interesting to find out what Roger Stone thought was worth recording / hoarding.
Wonder if he’s in the mood to give those Nixon peace signs now.
Terabyte capacities for hard disks have been routine for many years. 4 terabyte hard disks aren’t too expensive when I checked a year or two ago. Files nowadays are often really big -Microsoft Word is even notorious for bloating file size and including all sorts of unnecessary junk. I routinely handle image and pdf files that are huge. Video files take up a lot of space also. It all adds up quickly.
Anyway – it would not be hard today to accumulate terabytes of information.
videos… freaky videos.
years ago there was a story about stone and his body builder wife advertising for swinging partners..
Well, now we know better – beyond the obvious – why the GOP has been so adamant to oppose improved voter registration laws. People must be running scared behind the scenes.
I share a birthday with this foolio, unfortunately. I am so sick of his antics and those of this entire maladministration.
Where is Ann? Ann? Ohhh, Ann? Please stare at that header pic and repeat after me. Roger Stone is fugly. Please repeat often. Even his soul is ugly. And he admitted to being a swinger with his current wife, so his junk (shudder) is probably crawling with diseases. Ann, we will cure you of this monstrous addiction. Hugs 🤗
The thing that I hope the most with all of this is that they’re able to take down them all, in order to prevent either Trump or Pence pardoning anyone.
So extend away, trial judges. Give them plenty of time to make their cases for everyone included.
I wonder if Pence is going to be so quick to pardon Trump & Friends. Trump in particular has been engaged in criminal activity for decades, he has obviously been using his real estate business to launder money for rich foreigners such as Russians and Saudis and his shenanigans with his family charity is getting him and his children banned from positions in any charity ever again. It might be political suicide to pardon Trump and/or any others by the time it all comes out.
Plus Pence must secretly loathe Trump, who has never treated him with respect. Pence isn’t so stupid that he doesn’t realize that Trump has no respect for his religious beliefs either.
But in the end, Pence will do what the Republican leadership wants him to do. He always does. They have been grooming him for decades because he is so compliant. So the question is where the Republican leadership and their donors will stand on it eventually. I think Trump is destroying the Republican Party, and there must be Republicans who see this also.
The Democrats just need to hold as many relevant public hearings as possible to reveal this mess in detail, as happened with Watergate. They don’t need to vote for impeachment any time soon. They need to get the facts out to the public and to the Congress.
We don’t know if the FBI will hold to the old guideline of not indicting a current President. This is all much more serious than Watergate, but the Grand Jury wanted to indict Nixon. They decided to pass the info along to Congress instead and the Republicans managed to convince Nixon to resign. They had already convinced perennially crooked Agnew to resign the Vice Presidency (he was offered no prison time if he resigned within 24 hours) so they wouldn’t have a crook replaced by yet another crook.