WASHINGTON (CN) — The Justice Department put a comedian on the witness stand Thursday, locking in testimony that, while at times jocular, colored texts and emails presented as evidence that federal prosecutors hope will prove longtime Trump associate Roger Stone engaged in witness tampering.
Randy Credico’s testimony flowed from a childlike demeanor, jumping from one cultural reference to the next. The radio show host even volunteered to do a Bernie Sanders impression for U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
She shut down the offer. Jackson later told the witness “I understand you are a comedian -- but this is serious business," when he seemed primed to adopt the voice of a character from "The Godfather." Her warnings failed to stifle laughter from members of the public seated in the courtroom.
Credico promised to refrain but continuously tossed in film and television references playfully from “The Addams Family,” “The Sopranos,” “The Andy Griffith Show” and more.
Justice Department attorney Aaron Zelinsky was determined to keep the witness, who is critical to the government’s case, on course.
Stone has pleaded not guilty to lying to Congress about his ties to WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential election, as well as obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Federal prosecutors told the jury on Wednesday that Stone lied under oath to Congress that Credico was his backchannel to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Credico, under oath, denied he ever served as a go-between.
The government has rapidly introduced a trove of emails and texts the two men sent, showing Stone increasingly threatened Credico not to comply with a subpoena to testify before the House Intelligence Committee in 2017.
Audio from Stone’s 2016 interview on Credico’s show played out in court Thursday.
Stone said he believed Assange was in possession of emails hacked from the Hillary Clinton campaign.
“We have a mutual friend, somebody we both trust,” he said in the interview. Credico testified he was not the person Stone referred to on air.
Assange later in 2016 appeared as a guest on Credico’s show. But the witness said Thursday his only contact with the man holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London was through a secretary to schedule the interview.
Credico also admitted he had led Stone to believe he would pass a message to Assange about appearing on Stone’s own show — but told the jury he never followed through.
Responding to questions from Zelinsky on Thursday, Credico said he had no agenda in reaching out to Assange.
When reports began to surface that both Stone and Credico had ties to WikiLeaks, Credico reassured Stone there was “nothing to worry about.”
“No one’s communicated directly with Assange except for on my radio show I just delivered a letter to him,” Credico texted Stone in October 2016.
Fast-forward to late 2017 and Stone is turning up the pressure on Credico not to testify.
“‘Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan,’” Stone texted on Nov. 19, 2017 — quoting his longtime hero President Richard Nixon.
Justice Department attorney Jonathan Kravis asked former FBI agent Michelle Taylor, who testified Thursday morning, to explain the message.
“It’s a paraphrase of something Nixon said to John Dean and John Mitchell during the Watergate investigation,” she said.
