Americans need answers in probe of Roger Stone

New York Times: In his indictment of the Trump torpedo Roger Stone, the special counsel Robert Mueller noted that on June 14, 2016, the Democratic National Committee announced “that it had been hacked by Russian government actors.”

According to the indictment, unsealed Friday, Mr. Stone participated in and helped conceal an effort by the Trump campaign to cooperate with WikiLeaks in publicizing thousands of emails stolen from the Clinton campaign, which was done to devastating political effect. Mr. Stone stands accused of obstructing an official proceeding, making multiple false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness.

Around July of 2016, the indictment says, Mr. Stone told “senior Trump campaign officials” that WikiLeaks possessed stolen emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s chances of being president. It released the first batch on July 22, roiling the Democratic National Convention, which began three days later.

Maybe Mr. Trump and his associates had no idea who stole the emails and did not connect this bonanza with “Russian government actors.”

Mr. Trump and his associates might have thought that Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, was just being a mischievous scamp, not passing along communications stolen by Russian intelligence, most of which came from the hacker Guccifer 2.0, an online persona created by Russian military intelligence officers. Mr. Stone said in 2017 that he had carried out “completely innocuous” private Twitter exchanges with Guccifer 2.0 during the presidential campaign.

But then why did Mr. Trump say, five days after the first WikiLeaks release, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

And might not the Trump circle have suspected that WikiLeaks was working with Russia after Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and the campaign chairman Paul Manafort met at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, with Russians who were peddling dirt on Mrs. Clinton?

And if Mr. Trump’s first FBI intelligence briefing on Aug. 17, 2016, included a warning about Russian espionage, as NBC News reported in 2017, why didn’t Mr. Trump or anyone else in the campaign tell the agents about the meeting or the suspicious release of emails?

After the first WikiLeaks release, the indictment says, “a senior Trump Campaign official was directed” — presumably by someone even more senior — to contact Mr. Stone about what dirt the group had on the Clinton campaign. If the Trump campaign had not known that it was getting dirt from Russia, why did George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser whom Mr. Trump called “an excellent guy,” plead guilty to lying about his contact with a professor who said he had dirt from Russia on Mrs. Clinton? (Mr. Papadopoulos’s lawyer said his client had taken his cues from Mr. Trump, and that “the president of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could.”)

ROLE OF MICHAEL FLYNN

Why did the former national security adviser Michael Flynn plead guilty to falsely telling the FBI that he had not talked to the Russian ambassador about easing economic sanctions? And why did Mr. Trump craft a false story about the Trump Tower meeting, and falsely claim again and again that he had no business dealings with Russia even when his associates were negotiating with aides to President Vladimir Putin about a project in Moscow that could have earned him hundreds of millions of dollars?

Mr. Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon told the author Michael Wolff that he thought the Trump Tower meeting was “treasonous.” Yet he had no problem cooperating with WikiLeaks, according to the indictment. He is apparently the “high-ranking Trump Campaign official” who asked Mr. Stone on Oct. 4, 2016, about future WikiLeaks releases. Three days later, after the first stolen emails from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, were released, one of Mr. Bannon’s associates texted Mr. Stone, “well done.”

No one should jump to conclusions in this case. As president, Mr. Trump may have held himself to be above the law, but he is entitled to the presumption of innocence. For their part, the American people are entitled to some answers.