Watch Chris Hayes explain Roger Stone's connection to Capitol insurrectionists and Proud Boys
Hayes: “But, you know, it's not crazy to suppose the President didn't want him on the bench, he wanted him in the game -- to do what he's done his entire career”
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From the March 19, 2021, edition of MSNBC's All in With Chris Hayes
CHRIS HAYES (HOST): It wasn't just that the president gave the speech in which he told people to go to the Capitol, or that he spent a month or more creating the conditions for a violent mob to attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power. It's that the people of the core of this conspiracy, as revealed day after day in more and more charging documents, are all like, one note away from the president, or his circle.
I mean, look at this picture to see who the Oath Keepers were with the day before this happened. Look at that, it's Roger Stone.
And Roger Stone, let's be clear here -- Roger Stone is not some ancillary figure in Trump world. Remember, Roger Stone was Donald Trump's first political advisor. He was the guy there at the beginning when Trump launched his campaign in 2015.
According to federal prosecutors and to Stone himself, Stone played an instrumental role backchanneling with Wikileaks in 2016, right? Wikileaks, who of course was publishing the hacked and stolen documents taken by the Russian government.
And Stone played a role in communicating with Wikileaks as part of the first effort to cheat and create an uneven playing field for Trump's victory. It was, you know, successful, at least in the Electoral College.
And then subsequent to that, let's remember that Roger Stone lied about it to Congress in order to apparently cover up whatever he was up to in 2016. And he was convicted for those -- indicted and convicted -- for those lies by a jury of his peers.
And then, what happened? Well, he went away to prison but the president intervened, first by pushing the Department of Justice to reduce the sentence and then by first commuting Stone's sentence and then by directly pardoning him. There was no justification for it.
I mean, Trump was just helping out a buddy, right? And it didn't make much sense to commute that sentence in July -- it was the summer. He had to take a big political hit. But Roger Stone's whole life is quite proudly nothing but dirty tricks -- he is the guy with the Nixon tattoo on his back.
He is also the guy who claims credit for helping to instigate the infamous Brook Brothers riot back in 2000. That of course, would be the last time that an intimidating mob of right-wing activists invaded a government building in order to stop the orderly administration of the democratic process.
It's not crazy to think that is why Roger Stone was sprung by the President, why he was freed before the election. I mean, we don't know. Stone hasn't said, Donald Trump hasn't said. But, you know, it's not crazy to suppose the President didn't want him on the bench, he wanted him in the game -- to do what he's done his entire career.
Remember how the slogan around January 6 was, "Stop the Steal?" That's a Roger Stone phrase. Roger Stone coined that back in 2016.
And so, is it surprising to see Roger Stone -- again, long-time associate of the President, the President's henchman, the guy who lied on behalf of the President, who was then pardoned by the President -- to see him around D.C. around the insurrection, getting security from the people prosecutors say were part of the criminal conspiracy to stop Congress from doing its democratic duty?