Thread by @dfriedman33

Second full day of Roger Stone's trial is set to start. Stone's lead defense lawyer, Bruce Rogow is wearing a blue bowtie. Stone is wearing a gray suit and the goofy round glasses he likes. Past example:

Former FBI officer Michelle Taylor is back on the stand, continuing her testimony detailing the timeline of Stone's outreach, through intermediaries to WikiLeaks, and his contacts with Trump campaign officials.

Prosecutors are now taking Taylor through House rules related to the House Intelligence Committee, presumably as part of their effort effort to show that Stone obstructed the committee's work by lying to them.

Prosecutor Jonathan Kravis is playing clips from Stone's 9/26/17 House Intelligence testimony, during which prosecutors say Stone lied. They played audio of Stone being sworn in and reminded "that it is unlawful to provide false informations to members of Congress or staff."

Another clip includes this exchange:
Schiff: Did you discuss Mr. Podesta with the intermediary you've described that you had to Mr. Assange."
Stone: Did not.

This is at least misleading, since Stone did discuss Podesta with Corsi.

Prosecutors just played five audio clips from Stone's House Intelligence Committee testimony where he denied having records, emails/texts etc. responsive to the committee's request.

Here's where they really have Stone nailed: From 9/26/17 Stone testimony transcript displayed in court:

Quigley: How would you communicate with the intermediary?
Stone: Over the phone.
Quigley: Did you have any other means of the communicating the intermediary?
Stone: No.

Another one:
Schiff: So you never communicated with your intermediary in writing in any way?
Stone: No.
Schiff: Never emailed him or texted him?
Stone: He's not an email guy.

Taylor testified that subsequently executed search warrants show 72 written communications between Stone and Credico, who Stone claimed was his intermediary, just in Sep. 2017. In Oct. 2016, Stone and Credico had nearly 300 written communications, per a chart prosecutors showed.

After Stone sent a letter to the HPSCI, falsely naming Credico as his WikiLeaks intermediary, Stone emailed Credico what he said were portions of that letter. But prosecutors are revealing that Stone dramatically altered the excerpts he sent Credico.

The excerpt that Stone sent Credico referenced Stone noticing "landmark interviews" Credico conducted with Assange. That was not in the real letter Stone sent the committee.

The excerpt Stone sent Credico said his claim of a backchannel to Assange was “a bit of salesmanship"
for his Infowars audience. That also was not in the real letter Stone sent HPSCI.

Stone was trying to downplay to Credico the significance of his claim about Credico.

Taylor described the significance of Stone referencing the Godfather II character Frank Pentangeli, to urge Credico to take the 5th/say he doesn't recall contacts with Stone.

Former agent Taylor described the big Pentangeli testimony scene flawlessly, even quoting dialogue. Very impressive and a refutation of the assumption that Godfather II is mostly a guys movie. Strong example for a particular woman I know to view it.

Kravis just led Taylor through a series of test messages where Credico told Stone he'd decided to take the Fifth and not testify before HPSCI. Stone could also have learned that from our report a day earlier. motherjones.com/politics/2017/…

Taylor reads the "Prepare to die cocksucker" and other incredibly profane emails from Stone to Credico. And some the other way. We first reported on many of these last year. motherjones.com/politics/2018/…

When we reported Stone's "prepare to die" line to Credico last May, Stone told me that he said this because Credico told him he had terminal prostate cancer, so Stone was literally telling him to ready himself for death. Probably the craziest shit I've had to explain in print.

When we did that story, we also had Stone's email asking Credico, who had just done Ari Melber's MSNBC show, why his "breath smelled of Ari Melber's cock." That and a similar line about @Isikoff, we left out of the story.

@Isikoff Rogow is cross-examining Taylor. He starts to ask about Jerome Corsi. "Do you know that he wrote a book saying that Hitler didn't..."
"Objection," Kravis says, cutting off the revelation of whatever crazy shit Corsi said about Hitler.

@Isikoff The answer: Hitler didn't die in World War II, Corsi claimed in "Hunting Hitler: New Scientific Evidence That Hitler Escaped Nazi Germany."

@Isikoff Bruce Rogow, having been admonished by Judge Jackson for asking Taylor for hearsay, is asking questions very slowly and seems to be struggling greatly in his cross.

@Isikoff Rogow's trying to establish, as he said Weds, that Stone's stated desire to testify publicly is exculpatory. And that the parameters of the HPSCI investigation make Stone's answers to questions about WikiLeaks irrelevant to the stated goal of the probe. Or something.

@Isikoff Rogow's trying to establish, as he said Weds., that Stone's stated desire to testify publicly is exculpatory, and that the parameters of the HPSCI investigation make Stone's answers to q's about WikiLeaks irrelevant to the stated goal of the probe. Or something.

@Isikoff The defense's argument seems to be that since Republicans in '17 did not explicitly memorialize WikiLeaks as a topic of the HPSCI investigation, Stone didn't have to turn over comms mentioning Assange/WL. But that doesn't do much to address evidence Stone told explicit lies.

@Isikoff Prosecution calls Randy Credico! No dog.

@Isikoff Zelinksy, playing preemptive defense it seems, reveals that Credico in his grand jury testimony said he had not discussed Julian Assange with Stone. Credico says that after reviewing text messages he hadn't seen back then, he realized he had mentioned Assange to Stone.

@Isikoff Taylor, the former FBI witness, was a controlled, calm witness who never said more than necessary. Credico is excitable and is giving excess detail. Prosecutors must be sweating through it.

@Isikoff Zelinsky is taking Credico through exchanges with Stone in which they discussed Stone having an intermediary with WikiLeaks who wasn't Credico. Shows Stone lied when he named only Credico to HPSCI as his only WikiLeaks' contact.

@Isikoff Credico describes Stone in August 2016 asking for help getting Assange on Stone's own radio show. Credico: "I said 'Why don’t you ask your back channel you've been talking about'...He said: 'I can’t use the guy all the time, and he descried him as a journalist.'"