It's Mueller Time, Con't

Once again, I guarantee that GOP operative Roger Stone is going to be indicted after the midterms by the Mueller probe, and it's going to get very ugly, very quickly.  There's a reason that the bizarre and ultimately fruitless right-wing hatchet job that emerged this week of paying former associates of Mueller to fabricate sexual assault allegations, and it was a last-ditch effort to save Roger Stone from the dock as Mueller's trap jaws close in.

The special counsel investigation is pressing witnesses about longtime Trump ally Roger Stone’s private interactions with senior campaign officials and whether he had knowledge of politically explosive Democratic emails that were released in October 2016, according to people familiar with the probe.

As part of his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III appears to be focused on the question of whether WikiLeaks coordinated its activities with Stone and the campaign, including the group’s timing, the people said. Stone and WikiLeaks have adamantly denied being in contact.

On Friday, Mueller’s team questioned Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, about claims Stone is said to have made privately about WikiLeaks before the group released emails that prosecutors say were hacked by Russian operatives, according to people familiar with the session.

In recent weeks, Mueller’s team has also interviewed several Stone associates, including New York comedian Randy Credico and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi. Both testified before the grand jury.

Investigators have questioned witnesses about events surrounding Oct. 7, 2016, the day The Washington Post published a recording of Trump bragging about his ability to grab women by their genitals, the people said.

Less than an hour after The Post published its story about Trump’s crude comments during a taping of “Access Hollywood,” WikiLeaks delivered a competing blow to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by releasing a trove of emails hacked from the account of her campaign chairman John Podesta.

The group trickled out new batches of Podesta’s private messages nearly daily through the campaign’s final weeks, ensuring the stolen documents would vex Clinton’s campaign until Election Day.

Investigators have been scrutinizing phone and email records from the fall of 2016, looking for evidence of what triggered WikiLeaks to drop the Podesta emails right after the “Access Hollywood” tape story broke, according to people with knowledge of the probe.

In an interview this week, Stone vehemently denied any prior knowledge of the Podesta emails. He said he did not play any role in determining the timing of their release by WikiLeaks or suggest they be used to blunt the impact of the “Access Hollywood” tape.

It is unclear whether the special prosecutor has evidence connecting Stone to WikiLeaks’s activities. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, could have concluded on his own that releasing the emails on that day would benefit Trump.

The results of Mueller’s inquiry could answer the central question of his probe: whether there was coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russian activities. Trump has repeatedly declared there was “no collusion.”

Again, if Steve Bannon is being questioned about Stone, and if you somehow don't believe Bannon will give up Stone to save his own slovenly hide, November is going to be a fun education for a lot of people.  There's always the chance Trump will pull the trigger sometime next week and make his move trying to get rid of Mueller, but I don't think he'll beat Mueller to the punch when it comes to saving Stone.

Still, anything's possible once the midterms are done with.  We'll see.