When I interviewed Roger Stone over the phone for Esquire's oral history of election night 2016, I could almost hear the scene in his office on the other end: the old scoundrel sitting stock-straight behind a big mahogany desk, wearing a pinstripe suit and an ascot, tapping a finger on the wood as he reveled in the misery of Hillary Clinton and the triumph of his decades-long political ally, Donald J. Trump. Who knows? Maybe he was in pajamas. But Stone has, for all his mighty faults, quite successfully struck a pose somewhere between Bond villain and boarding-school bully.

This Friday morning has cemented his place somewhere closer to an international man of mystery—a designation not without its drawbacks. After all, the FBI busted into his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home in a predawn raid, arresting him on seven counts including "obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements, and witness tampering." The charges stem from his communications during the campaign with WikiLeaks, the organization that bills itself as advocating transparency in government, but which spent much of 2016 publishing emails that hackers linked to the Russian government had stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. That is, it served as a vital cog in the Kremlin's machine tasked with tipping the scales in an American presidential election.

A vehicle believed to be carrying Roger Stone, a former advisor to President Donald Trump, arrives at the Federal Courthouse on January 25, 2019 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Joe Raedle Getty Images

Stone's connection to WikiLeaks has been public for some time. His indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller reinforces that connection, and alleges Stone went to considerable lengths to obscure the nature of it—or at least, as he always has, to wiggle out of real culpability. But perhaps more crucially, the indictment issued by the special counsel draws new connections between the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and the stolen emails. The New York Times dug into it:

According to the indictment, Trump campaign officials contacted Mr. Stone during the summer of 2016 about future releases from WikiLeaks, suggesting that Mr. Trump’s campaign knew about the stolen emails before they were released.

How would the Trump campaign know WikiLeaks had the emails before WikiLeaks published them? They'd have to hear from WikiLeaks, or from the people who gave WikiLeaks the dirt.

One of many links in that regard runs through George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who blabbed to an Australian diplomat in a London bar that he knew Russia was in possession of Clinton dirt before it became public. The Washington Post obtained emails indicating Papadopoulos, who has since pled guilty to lying to the FBI, was in touch with senior members of the campaign, including Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn. The latter also pled guilty to lying to the FBI. Flynn and Papadopoulous join Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen as campaign associates of Donald Trump, American president, who have pled guilty or were convicted on charges issued by the special counsel's office. In all, 37 people or entities have been charged, and 199 charges have been filed. Who will be served lucky number 200?

Stone with Paul Manafort (L), with whom he set up a lobbying firm, and Lee Atwater. 1985. Getty Images

But the Times analysis of today's Stone indictment goes on.

Three senior Trump campaign officials have told Mr. Mueller’s team that Mr. Stone created the impression that he was a conduit for inside information from WikiLeaks, according to people familiar with their witness interviews. One of them told investigators that Mr. Stone not only seemed to predict WikiLeaks’ actions, but also that he took credit afterward for the timing of its disclosures that damaged Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

Let's not forget that Stone was not just in contact with WikiLeaks—there were plenty of reports he was also in touch with Guccifer 2.0, which Vanity Fair assesses as "a front for Russian intelligence posing as a hacker." Sounds like he was a multi-use conduit.

But let's also keep in mind Stone is not the only denizen of Trump World to get tangled up with WikiLeaks—at least if a November 2017 report from Julia Ioffe in The Atlantic is anything to go on.

The messages, obtained by The Atlantic, were also turned over by Trump Jr.’s lawyers to congressional investigators. They are part of a long—and largely one-sided—correspondence between WikiLeaks and the president’s son that continued until at least July 2017. The messages show WikiLeaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.’s cooperation. WikiLeaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump’s tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States.

There's so much going on 'round these parts, but here are two things to focus on: U.S. intelligence has assessed that the Kremlin chose WikiLeaks to disseminate the dirt, and WikiLeaks sought Junior's cooperation in that effort. And, in an at-first-glance inexplicable move, WikiLeaks urged the Trump campaign to dispute the results of the election before we knew anything about the results.

Donald Trump Jr. rides a Trump Tower elevator. John Moore Getty Images

Why would a "radical transparency organization" be interested in undermining faith in a democratic election before the election? When did that become part of their remit? And why does that happen to align with one of the key goals of the 2016 Russian influence campaign: to undermine the American public's trust in democratic elections and damage what most assumed to be the coming presidency of Hillary Clinton? Also, you might remember that Donald Trump himself suggested, over and over and over again, that the election would be rigged before we knew anything about the results. At the time, most chalked this up to him being a preemptive sore loser. Maybe we didn't give him enough credit.

And that's where the WikiLeaks connection continues in a way that's even more public and direct. You see, Donald Trump, American president, has a hard time saying the quiet parts quietly. He sometimes feels the need to say them out loud. That was true when he publicly called for the Russian government to hack his political opponent—they reportedly attempted to do so the same day—and it was true when he smirkingly celebrated the WikiLeaks developments in the home stretch of the campaign.

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Flashback to the campaign.



Trump: "WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks." pic.twitter.com/n09sEnCcBX — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 25, 2019

Wow, the president loves WikiLeaks! Trump referenced the organization and its releases over 160 times in just the last month of the campaign. Maybe he's a fan of "radical transparency" from political leaders. That's probably why he refused to release his tax returns. But wait.

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Hmm. Not a big Transparency Fan there.

It's almost like Trump's calculus changed when WikiLeaks was pretty openly working against his political opponent. The question is whether it was run-of-the-mill political opportunism, or he was aware of a more intricate plot. Either way, Trump tweeted ten times about WikiLeaks during the campaign, often complaining that the hacked emails were not getting enough mainstream media attention. He never said he wasn't greedy.

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Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2016

And then there's this:

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'WikiLeaks Drip-Drop Releases Prove One Thing: There's No Nov. 8 Deadline on Clinton's Dishonesty and Scandals'https://t.co/MfRy3Nvd4F — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2016

Notice the Fox headline seems to focus on the idea these "scandals" will continue to plague Clinton—or at least will be used as a cudgel against her—beyond Election Day. On October 27, the day of the tweet, pretty much everyone—likely Trump included—thought Clinton would win. This angle would seem to align with WikiLeaks' pleas for the Trump campaign to dispute the election results, because both align with Russia's aim of weakening Clinton as she took office, assuming she won.

Trump and Clinton share the stage at the second presidential debate, October 9, 2016. ROBYN BECK Getty Images

Now, it's possible Trump compmissed this detail, and retweeted the thing because it said "Hillary Clinton" and "WikiLeaks" and "scandals." Maybe so. But his oldest political adviser, a man raised on Nixonian dark arts, was just hauled off before dawn by the FBI on charges relating to his campaign shenanigans with WikiLeaks. Is there any reason to grant anyone here, including the president, the benefit of the doubt anymore? The Times, in its Timesian way, suggests not—and that we haven't seen the last of this corner of the Russia storyline.

According to the indictment, between June and July of 2016, Mr. Stone told “senior Trump campaign officials” about the stolen emails in WikiLeaks’ possession that could be damaging to Mrs. Clinton. On July 22, WikiLeaks released its first batch of Democratic emails. After that, according to the indictment, the Trump campaign sought more.

“A senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton campaign,” the indictment said, referring to WikiLeaks. The indictment did not make clear who directed the senior campaign official to reach out to Mr. Stone, though it left open the possibility that it was Mr. Trump.

That is, the indictment raises the possibility that Donald Trump, American president, directed his campaign aide to get in touch with Stone and, possibly, coordinate their strategy on future WikiLeaks releases. It's a merry dance we've all been led on so far. Where will we all be when the music stops? For one, Roger Stone—the prince of darkness, the incorrigible provocateur—may find himself in a federal prison.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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