Keller @ Large: Roger Stone Arrest Is No Surprise
BOSTON (CBS) - For Roger Stone, lying is like breathing, an essential reflex that sustains and defines his existence.
Watch Jon Keller's Analysis
Whether it was falsely smearing an opponent of an early boss, Richard Nixon, by making a campaign donation to him in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance and then leaking it to the press, lying about his role in threats against the elderly father of a Democratic political candidate, or dishonestly smearing opponents of then-candidate Donald Trump, or generally promoting some of the slimiest conspiracy theories of our time, Stone would be a sure-fire unanimous first-ballot choice for any political operative Hall of Shame.
So his indictment Friday morning by the feds on charges of obstruction, witness tampering and – wait for it – lying to Congress and investigators comes as no surprise. (Read the indictment here.)
But there's a broader context to Stone's proven and alleged mendacity.
He is no aberration.
Stone has been a player in the campaigns of Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and Trump, among others. In the 1980s, the DC lobbying firm he co-founded with Charles Black Jr. and (drumroll please) Paul Manafort was a lucrative, go-to agent for some of the world's worst slimebags, including Ferdinand Marcos of the Phillipines and Joan Savimbi of Angola.
Their success tells you plenty about the moral fibre of Washington business as usual.
And according to the new indictment, Stone was a key link in the chain of hacking and carefully-timed leaks designed to help Donald Trump and hurt the Clinton campaign that ran from Putin to Wikileaks operative Julian Assange to Trump Tower.
Stone's lifetime body of work suggests an utter absence of ethics or principles. There are too many like him in our political culture, and they are hardly restricted to one party.
But the latest charges add a new layer to Stone's shameful resume – active collaboration with a hostile foreign power to manipulate a US presidential election.
And now we await definitive evidence that Trump knew about or even directly authorized what Stone, Manafort, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen et al. were up to in connection with pathological lying, illegal financial dealings and potential treason.
"A man is known by the company he keeps," the ancient storyteller Aesop is said to have noted.
Once again, we are reminded of how true that is.
