The early morning arrest of Roger Stone disproves President Donald Trump's contention that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into collusion involving Russia is nothing but a "witch hunt," Sen. Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Friday.
"Since WikiLeaks was the vehicle through which a vast store of emails and materials that were damaging to the Democratic campaign and to the DNC and to the Democratic nominee were released to the public, this strongly suggests that this might be the connection point between the Trump Campaign’s leadership and WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence," the Delaware Democrat told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "This strongly suggests there was exactly that connection between the senior-most levels of the Trump campaign."
Stone, a longtime friend of Trump's, was arrested during an early morning raid at his Florida home and is free on $250,000 bond. He faces federal charges of obstruction, providing false statements to Congress, and witness tampering.
"This is not some casual low-level contributor to the Trump campaign," Coons said. "This is someone who had been very active in Republican party politics for a long time, worked on several presidential campaigns, was close with Paul Manafort, President Trump's campaign manager."
Coons said he hopes lawmakers will come together to protect the Mueller investigation, so that "Trump won't take some ill-advised sudden action to either fire Mueller or try and shut down this investigation."
If the claims made in Stone's indictment are borne out, that could prove a "textbook case of conspiracy" to undermine the 2016 election, Coons also said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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