Roger Stone's 'payload is still coming' email went to Erik Prince, prosecutors say

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN



(CNN)On the opening day of Roger Stone's trial for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing its investigation, one mystery appeared to be solved by prosecutors. The Donald Trump supporter who Stone alerted in October 2016 that "the payload is coming" -- an apparent reference to WikiLeaks' release of damaging emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign -- was Blackwater founder Erik Prince, according to prosecutors.

The exchange was publicly known but it had not been previously revealed that Prince, a Trump donor whose meetings with Trump officials during the transition stirred controversy, is the individual identified in the Stone indictment as "a supporter involved with the Trump campaign." Stone is accused of lying to the House Intelligence Committee, which was investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election, and obstruction of justice. The longtime Trump associate has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors referenced Prince and the communications during the first day of Stone's trial, which is expected to last three weeks. The communication is one of several at the center of the trial. Prosecutors expect to call members of the Trump campaign but are not planning on calling Prince, according to a person familiar with the plan.

Two days after Stone learned that "big news" damaging to Clinton's campaign would soon be leaked by WikiLeaks he emailed Prince -- the founder of Blackwater, a controversial private military company -- telling him "the payload is still coming," according to the source. According to the indictment, Stone emailed Prince on October 3, 2016, two days after Randy Credico told Stone, "big news Wednesday" and six days before WikiLeaks released hacked emails from the Clinton campaign. In the email, Stone tells Prince, "Spoke with my friend in London last night. The payload is still coming." Late the following day Prince sent a text message to Stone asking if he had "hear(d) anymore from London." Stone replied, "Yes -- want to talk on a secure line -- got Whatsapp?"

Stone told Prince, according to the indictment, that more material would be released that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign. It isn't clear why Stone would have relayed that information to Prince. They didn't know each other prior to the campaign, the source said. Credico has denied that he acted as Stone's intermediary with WikiLeaks and said his messages to Stone were based on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's public statements. Prince was a Trump donor and GOP fundraiser. Trump selected Prince's sister, Betsy DeVos, as his education secretary after taking office

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/politics/erik-prince-roger-stone-trial/index.html

[llmart]

1. The circle and breadth of the corruption is mind boggling.

Never in my lifetime, not even with Nixon, was the corruption, criminality, disregard for all laws, so widespread. There may not be enough jail cells to hold them all. I want every last one of them jailed.

[DENVERPOPS]

4. Bravo llmart

The size of all this is almost uncomprehendable and has been in the making for forty plus years......

Every day, there are more and more names and involved people, it is hard to keep track of them all.

The thing we have to remind ourselves about is that it is the REPUBLICAN SENATORS that are the center of this whole mess and THE ones that have allowed, condoned, and colluded so that this could come together and take place......

[DENVERPOPS]

6. Release the immigrants

And put this entire crowd in the fenced in areas the immigrants have been forced to occupy.......

And like the immigrants, they should get NO legal representation, space blankets, un-clean water, and forced to sleep on the concrete floors with one toilet for each fenced cage.......Their children should be ripped from them and placed with decent human beings who will raise them with morals and ethics........

[2naSalit]

7. Well, there's GITMO...nt

[Sherman A1]

11. That was my first thought as well

[PatSeg]

8. Same here

I'm blown away by the widespread corruption with these people, as if they all felt there would never be any repercussions for their actions. Besides being grossly unprincipled, they were also reckless and flat out stupid. Can they all really be shocked that their day of reckoning is upon them?

[DURHAM D]

2. Can someone remind me...

what was so damaging in the DNC emails?

[Beakybird]

3. There was nothing criminal in the emails, just some embarrassing stuff to consume the news cycle.

Like Donna Brazil who worked at CNN and gave advanced notice to the DNC about a topic that would come up at a candidate forum.
I think a lot of Americans conflated the DNC emails with Clinton's emails, and they pounded the message that something was fishy.

[PatSeg]

9. Exactly

There wasn't really much there, it was the perception of revealing some deep, dark secrets. Republicans are masters at this kind of BS.

[DeminPennswoods]

12. There was that email that caused the Sanders supporters

to get all worked up about the DNC "favoring" Clinton. That was pretty damaging.

[Qutzupalotl]

10. Also, consider that the RNC was hacked too.

Emails and who knows what else.

We haven’t seen anything released from this hack, so one assumes that Russia is keeping Republicans in line by threatening to release what they found. They certainly are in lock step, with a few getting frantic and irrational.

[sdfernando]

13. Been saying essentially the same thing for years now. /NT

[dalton99a]

14. Absolutely. The KGB is famous for extortion and blackmail

Putin's hackers vacuumed up everything they had access to, and they certainly had access to GOP servers

[yaesu]

5. We also must remember that mobbed up giuliani also knew about the emails as he hinted on

GOPTV before they came out.

[Nitram]

15. Prince is exactly the kind of guy Stone would want to impress.