It's your friendly neighborhood Sunday Show Rundown, which Rebecca forgot to post yesterday, and she has no idea how that happened. Today features one political supervillain and one "banality of evil" villain, so let's dive in.
We begin with former Trump campaign advisor, South Florida lowlife, and soon to be federal inmate Roger Stone.
Appearing on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Roger Stone came to give
Mueller further evidence of perjury a strong self-defense for his "reputation" and "good name."
On Friday, Stone was arrested and indicted by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel. But on Sunday, Stone was still upset by the manner of his arrest:
STONE: I think the way I was treated on Thursday is extraordinary. I think the American people need to hear about it. I'm 66 years old. I don't own a firearm. I have no prior criminal record. My passport has expired. The special counsel's office is well aware of the fact that I'm represented. The idea that a 29-member SWAT team in full tactical gear with assault weapons would surround my house, 17 vehicles in my front yard, including two armored vehicles, a helicopter overhead, amphibious vehicles in the back where my house backs onto a canal and I would open the door looking down the barrel of assault weapons, that I would be frog marched out front barefooted and handcuffed when they simply could have...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Roger, let me just -- but as you know it's pretty standard for that to happen. They work in...
STONE: No, it's not, not standard at all.
Of course what Stephanopoulos was trying to say, before being interrupted, is that early morning raids are standard procedure when going after individuals who can't be trusted not to conceal, destroy, or move evidence outside the court's jurisdiction. In fact it has already been done to
Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort. In both those cases, not only was evidence preserved but it resulted in successful convictions. There's also another reason:
Stone then tried to dismiss the Mueller indictment because he totally forgot to give them the emails that exonerate him:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you denied having any documents or text messages discussing WikiLeaks or Assange, but the prosecutors in the indictment lay out several e-mails, dozens of text messages.
STONE: You know, you're right, I did forget on some occasions that I had text messages and e-mails that are entirely exculpatory and prove that everything I said before the House Intelligence Committee was true.
Don't you just hate when that happens! Like when you forget your keys/wallet at home or "forget to bring the evidence to a Congressional investigation, that totally exists, that proves you are not a lying sack of shit and a Russian asset helping ANOTHER Russian asset get elected."
All these excuses were so sad it brought Chris Christie AND Adam Schiff together (in separate interviews) in a rare moment of bipartisanship when both stated how fucked Stone is:
REP. ADAM SCHIFF: White-collar defendants always make a -- some variation of the same argument. And that is 'I have a perfectly innocent explanation for this fact, and as for this other fact I can come with an innocent explanation for that, and likewise for all these other facts but, whatever you do, don't look at their totality.'
CHRIS CHRISTIE: I mean, you know, the fact of the matter is that every white collar defendant in this circumstance, when they're confronted with a bunch of documents of their own making, try to say that they're out of context. If I had a nickel for every time I had a defendant tell me, when I was US Attorney, it was out of context, I'd be a rich guy and I'm not. So the fact is that, you know, he's got a problem.
Watch Roger Stone for yourself or
watch Jerome Corsi throwing Stone's excuses under the bus:
Thankfully, before Chuck Todd had to "leave it there," Yamiche Alcindor managed to call this out:
ALCINDOR: I would just say that we also need to adjust what we think of as America. You're talking about assimilation. I grew up in Miami, where people speak Spanish, but their kids speak English. And the idea that we think Americans can only speak English, as if Spanish and other languages wasn't always part of America, is, in some ways, troubling.
Of course Brokaw is already on a "sorry to offend" apology tour. People wouldn't have to do this if they'd just stop enabling racism. It's not that difficult, Brokaw!
