Roger Stone indictment should have the GOP terrified of sticking by Trump: conservative columnist

Reacting to the stunning dawn raid and arrest of Roger Stone, a longtime confidante of Donald Trump, conservative commentator Jennifer Rubin said the indictment -- and what it contains -- should have Republican lawmakers running for the hills and away from the embattled president.

Writing at the Washington Post, Rubin invoked (with a slight modification) the well known Watergate question asked of disgraced President Richard Nixon: "What did President Trump know, and when did he know it?"

"The indictment and arrest of Roger Stone were not unexpected, but the allegations should shake Republicans out of their slumber," she wrote, before pointing out a key portion of the 7-count indictment. "A senior official was allegedly directed to inquire about stolen emails. Who directed him, and if not Trump himself, did Trump know what was being done on his behalf?"

"If Trump was directing campaign aides to intercede with Stone, and by extension, WikiLeaks, that 'would plainly constitute another piece — a big one — in the mosaic of evidence showing that Trump was committing campaign-related crimes in coordination with Russia to rig the presidential election in his favor by knowingly weaponizing stolen information against his opponent'," she wrote, quoting constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe.

"There are plenty of juicy and ludicrous tidbits in the indictment, such as Stone’s alleged mob-like threats to others including a reference to 'The Godfather: Part II," Rubin continued before warning Republicans there may be a price to pay later.

"Regardless of the luridness, no one — including Trump’s dead-enders in the right-wing media — should fail to recognize how serious this is,"she lectured. "We have collusion between Stone and WikiLeaks about a crime, stealing emails, and between Stone and a Trump campaign senior official about that activity. We will see which characters, if any, committed which crimes. But the president is a hair’s breadth from being implicated in collusion (or knowledge of collusion)."

You can read the whole thing here.