Not a question of if Stone will be charged, but when and with what. @11thHour pic.twitter.com/EUelfK110r
— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) December 20, 2018
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Mimi Rocah thinks one-time Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone is absolutely going to face criminal charges–and probably sooner than later.
Rocah appeared on MSNBC’s 11th Hour on Wednesday night–after news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller requested an “official transcript” of Stone’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. For more on that story, see Law&Crime’s previous reporting here.
Host Brian Williams wound up the pitch. He noted that Mueller’s request for said transcript could not be a photocopy or sent electronically but has to have “the imprimatur of the committee.” Williams then asked whether Rocah agreed that this Mueller request meant bad things were coming for Stone.
Rocah, who is also a professor at Pace Law School, answered in the affirmative.
“I do agree with that inference that people seem to be drawing from this,” Rocah said. “Under the rules of evidence, you need to get the best or original document–to charge someone; to put into court–and obviously they would want to have that just to make sure that the copies that they were looking at are accurate. And more importantly, under the rules of evidence, you need to have the original documents eventually in court.”
Rocah continued:
I think it is not a question if Roger Stone is going to be charged–and this makes it seem more imminent–and also what he will be charged with. This would seem to indicate that he will be charged with some kind of false statements relating to his testimony in Congress, but I would suspect that he will also be charged with other things. And, so I think that’s really the hanging question out there.
Rocah then added a few clarifying questions to the ongoing Stone speculation mix.
“Is he going to be charged with some kind of–not collusion–but conspiracy?” she asked. “Will he be charged with crimes in addition to the false statements? And what will the false statements be? What will the evidence be that Mueller puts forward of his lies to Congress?”
[Image via screengrab/MSNBC]
