Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and the Trump presidency for the new Spectator USA website.

I'm joined today by the BBC's Paul Wood, who has been following the Mueller inquiry closer than anyone.

And we're going to be talking about Roger Stone, who has just been arrested this morning in

connection with the inquiry into Trump-Russia collusion.

So, Paul, can you tell us a little bit about the counts in which he's been indicted and what it says about the Mueller inquiry and what it says about the possibility of Trump-Russia collusion?

Well, Stone himself expected this along with everybody else. And these are charges which are about procedure, giving false statements, encouraging somebody to lie to Congress, allegedly

witness tampering, telling Randy Credico his rather unlikely ally during the campaign that he was a

stoolie and he was going to be ripped apart by Stone's lawyers. None of this, as your question implies,

goes to collusion.

The prosecutor's statement in the indictment paints a picture of Stone coordinating with WikiLeaks, anticipating what they will do, prompting them to release dirt on Hillary.

He would say and has said to me and other reporters, so what? That's politics. It's opposition research. Getting dirt on your opponent is what we do in campaigns. But the allegation, of course,

is that this was coordinated with the Russians. You get a sense of that alleged coordination,

but with WikiLeaks in the indictment. You don't get any of it, any of the allegation

about coordination with the Russians. And I think Mueller is not showing his hand. He is building up a

case piece by piece and there is a lot more to come and possibly even more indictments for Roger

Stone if there was indeed Russia collusion.

Stone has struck to spectator USA, no less.

He tried to suggest that he was almost setting a trap for the deep state to walk into,

and that his arrest would be the way in which he would sort of expose how the, you know,

international agencies of intelligence had colluded together to try and bring down

Donald Trump. How much of that is kind of Roger Stone, who people who don't know is a sort of

very unusual character, how much of that is his bravado and how much do you think he really

...