Roger Stone offers cringe-worthy excuse for telling Mueller witness to lie to Congress

In a lengthy profile written by the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, Trump ally Roger Stone tried to explain messages sent to talk show host Randy Credico in which he allegedly encouraged him to lie to investigators.

In messages revealed by special counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of Stone last month, the longtime GOP dirty trickster repeatedly told Credico to "do a 'Frank Pentangeli'" before the House Intelligence Committee, a reference to a character in "The Godfather Part II" who blatantly lied to Congress about his relationship with the Corleone crime family.

Stone, however, denies that he encouraged Credico to perjure himself and was instead telling Credico to do an impersonation of the "Godfather" character as a homage to his days as a stand-up comedian.

"This is all wrong -- Randy is an impressionist,” Stone told Toobin. "He does impressions. I was asking him to do his Frank Pentangeli impression. I wasn’t telling Randy to lie."

Stone's request to Credico isn't the only evidence that Mueller has presented of alleged witness tampering. In other messages sent to Credico, Stone threatened to take away the talk-show host's therapy dog while also telling him, "Prepare to die" if he gave testimony that contradicted testimony given by Stone.