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Aaron Maté of The Nation returns to discuss today's made-for-TV arrest and indictment of Roger Stone, the Buzzfeed imbroglio and other recent developments in the Russiagate narrative.Maté is a rational skeptic of the Trump/Russia narrative, and returns today, just a few hours after Mueller staged a dawn raid with 29 agents to arrest Roger Stone, the longtime Republican "dirty-trickster" (his words).
We open with discussion of the indictment, six charges of lying to Congress and one count of witness tampering. Indictments aren't evidence, and the scenario laid out accuses Stone of exaggerating his contacts with WikiLeaks in 2016. As Maté points out, Stone never communicated directly with Julian Assange, he relied on Jerome Corsi and Randy Credico, who relayed messages from people close to Assange.
We quote from the NY Times' hyped coverage of the news, declaring it's "the most direct link yet" between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. The article includes a caveat that the indictment doesn't tell us if Stone or Trump officials knew about the plans before "Russian operatives....hacked the Democrats", which remains unproven.
We talk about the Buzzfeed story that was called "inaccurate" by Mueller's spokesperson, and compare our different takes on its plausibility. And we talk about the comments of almost-confirmed attorney general Bill Barr about what he'll do with Mueller's report.
Read Maté's recent articles here and here.
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