I will plead not guilty to these charges.

I will defeat them in court.

I believe this is a politically motivated investigation.

I am troubled by the political motivations of prosecutors.

And as I have said previously, there is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will

bear full sweetness against the President, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure

on myself.

That was Roger Stone speaking on the courthouse steps Friday, not long after he was arrested

by the FBI on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller for obstruction, lying

to congressional investigators and witness tampering.

It was the culmination of a months-long investigation by the Russian gate prosecutors into a man

who for nearly 40 years was a close friend and political adviser to Donald J. Trump.

The indictment against Stone unveiled damning new evidence of Stone's false statements to

the House Intelligence Committee about his efforts to learn about damaging emails hacked

by Russian military intelligence and released by WikiLeaks during the closing weeks of the

2016 presidential campaign.

It also included evidence of multiple contacts with senior Trump campaign officials about

the issue, including an allegation that one such official was, quote, directed, to contact

Stone about what document dumps WikiLeaks was planning, directed by whom the indictment

doesn't say.

But does all this bring us any closer to learning once and for all if the Trump campaign actually

colluded with the Russians or for that matter anybody at WikiLeaks?

...