Prosecutors Say Roger Stone Lied To Congress About Trump-Wikileaks Involvement

Federal prosecutors accused GOP political operative Roger Stone of lying to Congress at the opening of his trial on Wednesday, saying that he sought to protect President Donald Trump from unnecessary embarrassment.

The evidence included a compilation of communications between Trump and Stone. The most damning evidence was a series of 2016 phone calls and text messages, which provided evidence that Stone had lied.

Prosecutors suggested that Stone covered for Trump “because the truth looked bad for [the] president.”

Although the charges against Stone are not directly related to his interactions with Trump, the FBI charged Stone on seven criminal counts, including obstruction and witness tampering. He is also being charged with false testimony to the House Intelligence Committee.

Stone testified to Congress that he was not involved with the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also stated that he only spoke in person or over the telephone to the hacker who published Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton‘s emails. But text messages and emails, contradict  these statement. They seem to show he made false statements about his  interactions related to the hacked Democratic National Committee server and Wikileaks’ email release during the election.

Prosecutors displayed a video clip of Stone’s testimony where he claims to have never communicated with his contact Randy Credico in any way about WIkileaks. The jury was then showed hundreds of text messages between the two parties. Stone and Credico exchanged 72 messages alone on the day of the 2017 testimony.

The trial is the last relevant case Special Counsel Robert Mueller III filed in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.