The federal government finally took decisive action against criminal elements near the U.S. southern border this morning by going to Ft. Lauderdale and arresting O.G. co-conspirator Roger Stone. Stone, who has been involved in a caravan of criminal activities since at least the 1960s, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he lied to the House Intelligence Committee and obstructed their investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election.

CNN aired footage of the raid, which may be the best thing not starring Regina King that I've seen this year.

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"FBI! Open the door!"



Here is the footage that @DelarosaGilAJAM filmed of the FBI's pre-dawn raid at Roger Stone's home in Florida. @davidgshortell was the only reporter on the scene. pic.twitter.com/3VF22pmwA7 — Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 25, 2019

Even though this footage of a bunch of people running around in tactical gear looks like the Twitch stream of someone who is not great at Call of Duty, I have still watched it 20 times. They really sent in Seal Team Six to take down retired Batman nemesis Roger Stone, who, according to court records, is 600 years old and legally "more of a construct than a person at this point." Stunning!

I also love the commentary that the anchors have to give to this murky outtake from Zero Dark Thirty. "This is just remarkable. He said 'FBI! Open the door!'"

"What do you think that means, Jan?"

"Well, Chuck, I'm getting reports that these people are from the Federal Bureau of Investigations and they want—hold on... Yup, word is coming in that they want him to... open the door."

"Astounding."

"What you are watching here has never been seen before, folks."

The footage, unfortunately, does not include the sight of Roger Stone padding out on to the lawn in his bedtime ensemble, which I assume is a custom three-piece pajama suit, steam-punk goggles for seeing the phantasms in the dark, and a Wee Willy Winkie hat.

Call it a hunch:

Mike Coppola Getty Images

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this photo from the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival catches Roger Stone literally red-handed and I am undone.

Mike Coppola Getty Images

Maybe a little bit more caution when you apply the self-tanner, old chap! And also when you do the crimes!

Also of note, Roger Stone—and I promise I am not making this up—has a tattoo of Richard M. Nixon's face on his back. Like a very unsubtle Professor Quirrell.

Twitter

As you may recall from the movie Nixon, Richard Nixon was an American president who liked to do crimes and use foul language and Stone began his political career working for him. So, in the future, some poor auteur is going to have to make a film about the present in which a man with a Richard Nixon back tattoo strolls into the White House of a different foul-mouthed, crime-doing president, for the purpose of doing more crimes, and everyone on screen is going to have to act like this is normal. We live in the dumbest times. Even Alex Jones is like "This seems a little too on the nose, my dude! Call me a conspiracy theorist, but there's something fishy here."



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The upside of the Trump administration's ignominious time in power is that the number of indictments that I read on a regular basis has definitely jumped; I'm going to do super well on the LSATs at the end of this, I assume. The downside is that every single bit of it plays out like the absolute worst movie you ever watched over a stranger's shoulder on a plane. One of those movies that you don't even need to hear the dialogue to know it was written by a robot that was obsessed with The Godfather and starred Paul Sorvino just because he needed money to install a second pool. This is that. We're in that. Just us, Regina King's extraordinary body of work, and Roger Stone, who was roused from his crypt this morning to face charges of witness tampering, obstruction, and the accusation that he was the villain in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

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R. Eric Thomas R Eric Thomas is a Senior Staff Writer at ELLE.com, home of his daily humor column "Eric Reads the News," which skewers politics, pop culture, celebrity shade, and schadenfreude.

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