Roger Stone is hosed

Everything just changed for Roger Stone. If you’ve been paying close attention, you already know that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has spent the past several weeks hauling just about everyone in Stone’s political and personal life before a grand jury, making clear that he intends to indict and arrest Stone. That’s bad enough news for Stone on its own – but yesterday things got much worse for him.

Based on what the grand jury witnesses have told various media outlets, it’s become clear that Robert Mueller is planning to indict Roger Stone for conspiring with Russia during the election, and for various alleged financial improprieties. This isn’t surprising, as it’s the same strategy Mueller used against Paul Manafort. The idea is that it’s comparatively easy to get a conviction on the financial fraud, because there are records of these things, thus ensuring that the defendant goes down for something, and perhaps facilitating a plea deal.

If Roger Stone’s bluster is to be believed, and that’s a big “if” considering his track record, he seems to want to fight the charges. That requires high priced attorneys who specialize in this kind of thing, and accordingly he’s been seeking to raise large sums of money for his defense fund. But yesterday we learned two things. The first is that, even with the best lawyers, Manafort was still convicted of eight felonies for his financial improprieties. So much for the idea that Manafort, Stone, or anyone else can go into court and use the politicized spectacle of the Trump-Russia scandal to beat the rap.

The second thing we learned yesterday is that the magic pardons aren’t coming. If Michael Cohen thought Donald Trump was willing or able to successfully pardon him, he’d still be waiting for that pardon. Instead he committed himself yesterday to serving several years in prison as part of his plea deal. So when it comes to Roger Stone, he can’t win at trial, and he can’t count on a pardon. Stone is hosed. He might as well flip now.