Marcy Wheeler:
The most important detail — by far — in the indictment reveals that a senior Trump Campaign official “was directed” to contact Stone about what else was coming from WikiLeaks.…
I suspect that the senior Trump Campaign official was Rick Gates, though that’s a guess (Bannon is the very senior official named later in the indictment). The indictment doesn’t say, “directed by whom.”
And that, I think, is why Stone was arrested before dawn rather than permitted to self report, and why Stone was charged with obstruction plus five counts of false statements plus witness tampering (the latter of which carries real time).
This is an effort to get Stone to reveal who that “whom” was, and whatever follow-up contacts he had with that “whom.”
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/01/25/mueller-plays-hardball-with-roger-stone/
As this news unfolds, remember that Manafort makes an appearance in court today. This timing almost certainly is NOT coincidental.
