Donald Trump’s Twitter feed went completely silent after the early morning arrest of his longtime friend and informal campaign advisor, Roger Stone. The White House, however, sent out Sarah Huckabee Sanders to answer questions from reporters.
ABC News reported Sanders’ remarks:
‘Look my first reaction is real simple, this has nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the White House. This is something that has to do solely with that individual and not something that affects us here in this building.’
Sarah Sanders is asked at least twice about whether Trump directed "a senior Trump Campaign official" to contact Roger Stone about Wikileaks. She does not directly answer. Via CNN pic.twitter.com/LXPrX2CH3z
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 25, 2019
While the White House may have been able to say that about Manafort’s arrest – his charges involved illegal acts from before his time with the Trump campaign that raised questions about his ties to Russia and Ukraine as well as about why Trump would have hired him to run his campaign – but Stone’s charges are directly related to his work with the campaign in 2016.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said:
‘It also puts into context why Donald Trump was talking so much about WikiLeaks. Why was Trump talking so often about new information that was coming? Why was he talking so much about WikiLeaks? Why did he make that invitation to the Russians? Now you know they had a connection in Roger Stone.’
SARAH SANDERS on the Roger Stone indictment: "A bigger question is if this is the standard, will the same standard apply to people like Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Clapper? Will we see the same people we know also made false statements, will that same standard apply?"
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) January 25, 2019
Of course, Sanders pivoted immediately to the “what aboutisms” for which the Trump team is so famous.
‘A bigger question is if this is the standard, will the same standard apply to people like Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Clapper? Will we see the same people we know also made false statements, will that same standard apply?’
There’s no indication that Clinton or Comey ever lied under oath, nor have they been indicted on any charges. The questions she was being asked were about Trump, not Comey, Clinton, or anyone else that Trump doesn’t like.
CNN’s @JohnBerman: Did the President direct someone to have Roger Stone reach out to WikiLeaks?
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders: I’m not an attorney.
— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) January 25, 2019
The indictment specifically implicates at least one Trump campaign official and possibly two. One met with Roger Stone to receive regular updates about his work with Wikileaks, who published illegally hacked documents damaging to the Clinton campaign. However, there are other questions being raised about who ordered that campaign official to meet with Stone.
The official indictment says:
‘During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1.’
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insists that the indictment of President Trump's longtime associate Roger Stone has nothing to with the President https://t.co/1m7LZ7DQVk pic.twitter.com/GZdzPhPnL4
— CNN (@CNN) January 25, 2019
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
