Shame on Van Susteren. She makes the claim that the FBI tipped off CNN yet offers absolutely nothing to back it up. She just plucked that out of thin air. My opinion of her was always low and it has now dropped to zero – I will never again listen to any of her commentaries following this flagrant, concocted accusation.
Van Susteren’s unsupported allegation is especially unconscionable since she knows it will be picked up by Trump and, sure enough, he’s spreading the smear today (his tweet: “Who alerted CNN to be there?”). Millions of Trump’s followers have now been conned into believing one more unsubstantiated black mark against the FBI. Yes, we could indeed find out that the FBI leaked the arrest particulars to CNN, but so far there is no basis to make this claim and it is reprehensible to do so.
In fact, all the signs point to CNN’s coverage of the arrest simply being the result of dogged, expert journalism. As reported in Lawfare’s excellent analysis of Stone’s indictment posted by @Pet_Proletariat:
Trump and some media figures have questioned how CNN came to have cameras at Stone’s house at the time of his arrest. “Who alerted CNN to be there?” the president asked, clearly implying that someone had leaked that the arrest was happening. And in the same tweet, he complained about the manner in which law enforcement dealt with Stone: “Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better.”
This suggestion has gathered steam in pro-Trump media in the hours since Stone’s arrest. But in fact, it’s no secret why Mueller’s team decided to execute an early morning raid, rather than allow Stone to surrender himself to authorities. The special counsel’s office made this very clear in its motion to seal the indictment and related warrants and motions, filed the day before Stone’s arrest:
Law enforcement believes that publicity resulting from disclosure of the Indictment and related materials on the public record prior to arrest will increase the risk of the defendant fleeing and destroying (or tampering with) evidence. It is therefore essential that any information concerning the pending indictment in this district be kept sealed prior to the defendant’s arrest.
In such circumstances, the treatment of Stone is quite normal: arrests are often made by the FBI, and warrants are generally executed, in early-morning hours as a matter of standard operating procedures.
Trump’s suggestion that law enforcement leaked the coming raid also seems wholly unlikely. Law enforcement tends to take the secrecy surrounding raids extremely seriously; a leak risks compromising an investigation in the precise way Mueller’s filing suggests, not to mention potentially placing FBI agents in physical danger. More importantly, CNN has offered a detailed explanation of how its reporters obtained the story, saying reporters had been “staking out Stone because there was just enough evidence lurking in the special counsel’s activity over the past week that CNN’s team covering the Mueller investigation placed a bet that Stone could be arrested as early as Friday.” According to CNN, the first hints were provided when a Mueller’s team told a grand jury witness to select a day for testimony other than Friday—an indication the special counsel’s office anticipated being busy. Then the grand jury was set to meet Thursday, instead of on the usual Friday. CNN reporters then observed Mueller’s prosecutors in the courthouse meeting with the grand jury and later saw one of those prosecutors wheeling a suitcase, suggesting plans to travel. CNN decided to send a team to stake out Stone’s house in case an arrest was imminent. In other words, this does not appear to have been a leak it all—just good reporting leading to a scoop.
And here’s CNN’s own validation of their hunch about the timing of the Stone indictment – yesterday, I happened to catch this CNN alert speculating that the arrest might come the next day (today):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=5loQowx3KKo
In other words, if CNN had neglected to be at Stone’s house early this morning, they would not have been doing their job as journalists. Heck, if I lived within driving distance, I would have been tempted to be there myself, sitting in my car having my morning cup of joe and staking out the place along with the CNN crew.