The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Adviser Roger Stone Pleads Not Guilty; Acting AG Says Russia Probe May End Soon

Episode Date: January 29, 2019

Republican political consultant Roger Stone pleaded not guilty in federal court on Tuesday to obstruction and other charges unsealed last week. Plus, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said that the Russia Investigation is "close to being completed." This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, and justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Kelsey from Chicago, and I'm in my fourth year of medical school. I just finished traveling across the country interviewing at 22 different internal medicine residency programs. Thank you to NPR Politics for keeping me up to date as I traveled from coast to coast. This podcast was recorded at 1.45 p.m. on Tuesday, the 29th of January. Things might have changed by the time you hear this. I might even have a job for next year. And a special thanks to the love of my life, Gloria, for supporting me through this crazy journey and for introducing me to this podcast in the first place. Okay, here's the show. So much love. So exciting. Always good to hear from Chicagoland. Carrie's from Chicago. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics

Podcast. President Trump's former advisor, Roger Stone, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to the Russia investigation. And the acting attorney general says the Mueller probe could be coming to an end. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Ryan Lucas. I also cover the Justice Department. All right, let's start with Roger Stone. He was in court today. But before we get there, Ryan, can you remind us of how we got to this point of President Trump's longtime advisor having to appear in court? Stone was arrested at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Friday.

He made an initial court appearance in Fort Lauderdale on Friday as well. There was a bit of a rocket scene outside on the steps afterwards. He was arraigned then today in Washington, D.C. Fort Lauderdale on Friday as well. There's a bit of a rocket scene outside on the steps afterwards. He was arraigned then today in Washington, D.C. In the interim, however, he has done a whole lot of media appearances attacking the FBI, attacking Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, also trying to gin up some financial support for his legal defense fund. But there's been a lot of time on TV, a lot of time pushing his case. To storm my house with a greater force than was used to take down bin Laden or El Chapo or Pablo Escobar to terrorize my wife and my and my dogs is it's

unconscionable. I would have been more than happy. They knew I was represented. Had they contacted my attorneys, I would have voluntarily turned myself in. I would have been able to wear a suit and tie for my mugshot. It would have looked a lot better. Normally, when people are arrested and accused of crimes, they get quiet. Roger Stone loves attention. He has participated in a Netflix documentary. He has tried to take credit for scandals large and small over the last 40 years. The notion that this guy would keep his mouth shut even after he's indicted is a pretty tall order for somebody like Roger Stone. All right. I think we get an idea there. Carrie, you were at court today at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. Friday, as Ryan said, was a little crazy. How was it today?

You know, I got there so early that there were only a few cameras set up, but I put my stuff down and I later went back to the first floor and looked outside. And at one point, friends and foes of Roger Stone before Roger Stone arrived were amassed in front of the court entrance and they were trading really awful rhetoric. At one point, it looked like there was going to be a fistfight or a fight club type type atmosphere outside. People were there with signs calling Roger Stone a dirty traitor. Other people were there with signs criticizing Hillary Clinton, President Trump's political opponent in 2016. It got really mental. And finally, Roger Stone showed up and he had at least four or five police officers helping to usher him through that crowd and into the courthouse. OK, so let's get to the meat of it. He is charged with seven counts,

five counts of lying to Congress, and one count of impeding an investigation and one count of witness tampering. Okay. The indictment portrays Stone as sort of an intermediary between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks regarding the hacked Democratic emails that the U.S. intelligence community says was hacked by Russia and then shared with WikiLeaks. So inside the courtroom, Roger Stone was pretty subdued. He, in fact, allowed his lawyer to plead not guilty for him. And Roger Stone was wearing, he's sometimes known for his sartorial choices being very bold. He was wearing a blue suit and a blue tie and a blue pocket square. And one of the reporters in the media room with me hollered out, it's not even a double breasted suit. All right. He may have disappointed at least some of his fans and admirers with his

costume choices today. Now, Tam, with all of these cases involving associates of the president or former associates of the president, the question of pardons ultimately comes up. It's inevitable. In the case of Roger Stone, has this question been posed to the White House? And if so, what has the White House had to say? The question was posed to Sarah Sanders in the White House press briefing a couple of different ways yesterday. In one case, she was asked, has the president ruled out a pardon for Roger Stone? And she said, I'm not aware of that. I haven't had any conversations regarding that matter. Now, that sounded like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not aware of him

ruling it out. It could be on the table. But then she was asked again, and she went on to say that she's not going to get into it and that there are no conversations that she's aware of. Well, and the president himself has explicitly left the question of a pardon for Paul Manafort on the table. He was asked whether he would rule that out a couple of months ago, and he refused to rule it out. He just simply did not. He left it explicitly on the table. Right. And Paul Manafort is the president's former campaign chairman and one of the now growing handful of people affiliated with the Trump campaign who have been indicted as part of, well, he's even been convicted as part of the Russia investigation. Since we are talking about Paul Manafort, he has also been in the news a little bit. He was supposed to have a sentencing next week, Carrie, and that's now not happening. Yeah, Tam, I was getting so worked up about this yesterday. I thought we've got to

get a hotel room across the street from the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, because they don't let our cell phones in and no laptops or anything. And we got a file and this is going to be crazy. And I'm going to have to wake up at three o'clock in the morning and get in line at the courthouse. And I was starting to do all the planning for Paul Manafort's sentencing next Friday. And lo and behold, the judge came back yesterday afternoon and sent out an order saying he was canceling Paul Manafort's sentencing. Because there are some open issues on the table. One of them, of course, is whether Paul Manafort intentionally lied to the special counsel and blew up his plea deal here in D.C. The judge in D.C. has to make a determination about that. Obviously, this judge in Virginia wants to wait to sentence or punish Paul Manafort

till that's decided. OK, all of these court cases are part of the special counsel's Russia investigation. Now, take a listen to what acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker said yesterday about it. The investigation is, I think, close to being completed. We'll talk about the timeline for the special counsel after this break. Support for this podcast and the following message come from BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers licensed professional counselors who specialize in issues such as depression, stress, anxiety, and more. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment at your convenience. Get help at your own time and your own pace. Schedule secure video or phone

sessions. Plus, chat and text with your therapist. Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR to learn more and get 10% off your first month. Whether it's athlete protests, the Muslim travel ban, gun violence, school reform, or just the music that's giving you life right now, race is the subtext to so much of the American story. And on Code Switch, we make that subtext text. You can listen to us on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker made a rare statement about the timeline of the Russia investigation. We were kind of surprised that he weighed in on it. Here's what he said. The investigation is, I think, close to being completed. And I hope that we can get the report from Director Mueller as soon as we as possible.

This is the first time we've heard a statement like this from a senior Justice Department official. There's been a lot of speculation that we may be nearing the end of the Mueller investigation, but we had never heard anything officially from someone high up in the Justice Department. So this is important because of who it is that is talking. But remember, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker

may not be around very long. Bill Barr is likely to be confirmed in the next couple of weeks. He would take over the investigation, oversight of the investigation. So Whitaker's statements need to be taken with a grain of salt. And also, there are court proceedings going on. Roger Stone was just indicted. This is going to take some time for all of this to play out. So this is not something that we're going to get some sort of report on the desk in the next two weeks.

Okay. The special counsel's office says they're not commenting. And in the absence of comment from them, I think we can take some guidance from Matt Whitaker, who told reporters yesterday he's been fully briefed on the status of that investigation. But I've been covering lawyers now for 20 plus years. And the meaning of words like close to being completed and as soon as possible, I know from working with and covering attorneys for a long time, especially government attorneys, is not what our definition at NPR and the news business is of close to being completed. We will not set calendar notices. No, absolutely not. Remember that we still have to figure out what is going on with that

mystery case that's been in the D.C. federal court, the appeals court, in the Supreme Court, and back again. Remember that Mueller appears to still want testimony from at least one Roger Stone underling. And remember that in the raids of Roger Stone's residences and office last Friday, they collected a whole bunch of stuff. It takes a long time to go through that stuff, especially, as we know, because the FBI has been on furlough. And they got a backlog of stuff to go through, let alone the new Roger Stone stuff. So I would exercise caution when it comes to thinking that end means February. Another thing related to justice and stuff that you guys cover,

Ryan, today there was a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing where we heard from high level intelligence officials, the CIA director and the FBI director. And the director of national intelligence and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the director of the National Security Agency and the director of National Geosp agency and the director of the national security agency and the director of national geospatial agency. Oh, geospatial. The maps matter, Tam. The maps matter a lot. And not just for redistricting. Wonk humor. So, Ryan, what are your take-homes from that?

What stood out from the testimony? Well, the big thing is we have talked about the disconnect between the White House and the intelligence community on key matters of national security before. That was in black and white today on a number of key issues. One being the fight against the Islamic State. Trump has said that, well, we won in Syria. It's all over. Let's against the Islamic State. Trump has said that, well, we won in Syria. It's all over. Let's bring the troops home. The CIA director, Gina Haspel, says the Islamic State, sure, it has suffered losses in Iraq and Syria, but it remains dangerous.

It has thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned that they are still looking to try to carry out attacks in the West. So this fight against the Islamic State, it's not over. Another big thing of kind of this glaring gap between the White House and the intelligence community is North Korea. What does the White House say about North Korea? Well, what the White House says is that they are looking forward to a new summit, a second summit with Kim Jong-un sometime next month. Right. And the president has expressed a lot of optimism that they're going to get a deal. Everything's going to be taken care of. And he even declared that North Korea is no longer a

nuclear threat after his first meeting with Kim Jong-un. Right. They've kind of walked that part back a little bit, but they certainly have expressed optimism. They feel like they are good partners, that they're working well together. Right. Well, the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, he has a different view on this. What he said today was that North Korea is unlikely to ever give up its nuclear weapons or its production capability. He says that North Korean leadership views these things as critical to their survival. This has been the view of the U.S. intelligence community for many, many years. That view has not changed despite the outreach to the North Korean regime. And then the third big thing is Iran, and Iran has been a boogeyman for the White House. A lot of that relates back to the Iranian nuclear deal from 2015, which the Trump Iran has been complying with that nuclear deal, despite the fact that the U.S.

pulled out of it. What the intelligence leaders say, however, is that Iranian leadership is debating internally at this point in time whether to continue to abide by the deal or not, because the economic benefits that they were hoping to reap from it have not shown up. Three very big foreign policy national security issues in which the intelligence community does not have the same view as the White House. You know, Ryan, one thing I did not hear you talk about was the southwest border. Well, it was mentioned in Dan Coats' written statements. He talks about how the U.S. intelligence community believes that there will continue to be drug cartels in Mexico and Central America will continue to try to push drugs over the border.

That will remain a problem and that violence, crime, economic hardship will continue to kind of propel migrants out of those countries in Central America and drive them towards the United States out of hope for a better life. They don't expect that issue to drop off the map. But there was not the sort of full court press regarding the question of a crisis at the southern border like we've heard out of the out of the White House. Yeah. And now they talk more about the humanitarian crisis. All right. We are going to end it there and we will be back as soon as there is political news that you need to know about. Until then, head to npr.org slash politics newsletter to subscribe to our weekly roundup of our best online analysis. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Carrie Johnson and cover the Justice Department. I'm Ryan Lucas. I also cover the Justice Department. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.