How I got Roger Stone's emails and texts.

The story behind the story. Hi MoJo Reader, Dan Friedman here. I'm the foreign influence and national security reporter at Mother Jones. Our team asked if I'd write an email to you, talking about my reporting and asking you to [support]( our new Corruption Project. This is a first for me as a journalist. It feels a bit strange to ask for donations. But Mother Jones would not exist without the generosity of our readers, and this is a particularly important moment. So I figured I'd give it a shot. I did everything I could to get my job when I saw, shortly after Donald Trump had fired James Comey, that Mother Jones was hiring a foreign influence and national security reporter as a standalone beat. Specialization like this is rare. I knew I'd get to do in-depth investigative reporting, which isn't guaranteed for most journalists today, and I knew that at Mother Jones, I could cover the Russia scandal and also foreign influence as a broader topic. Two years later, I was right. I love my job, so first, I wanted to say how appreciative I am of the MoJo community, whose donations let me—and all of us—do this work. Thank you very much. Clara and Monika say this a lot when asking readers for support, and I can vouch for it: Because Mother Jones relies on donations from readers, you give reporters like me the time needed to produce original journalism that has an impact, and the independence to call it like it is. I hope showing how that works for me in practice will make a compelling case to [pitch in](. Here is an example. Last year, I got a tip about Randy Credico, a political activist and radio host who Roger Stone, Trump’s famous adviser and dirty trickster, claimed was his backchannel to WikiLeaks. I started talking to Credico and learned he had years of emails and text messages he exchanged with Stone, including messages about WikiLeaks. Credico was distrustful of the media, me included, so it took time. But over 10 months I wheedled from him correspondence that collectively suggested Stone may have broken the law by trying to threaten and cajole Credico into misleading federal investigators about their contacts in 2016. That was the reporting process. The impact? One [resulting story]( may have actually helped advance special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Stone. An email Stone sent threatening Credico, first reported by MoJo, was quoted in Stone’s indictment as evidence of witness tampering. Other stories I wrote revealed that Stone [offered]( to help pay Credico’s legal fees and that Stone had [claimed]( he was secretly working to secure a pardon for Julian Assange. I would not have gotten those emails and texts if I didn't have the time and space to develop a relationship with Credico. Too many times as a journalist, you know there's more to the story, but you need to move on and crank out the next piece. That's why giving our team the time to dig deep is a big part of our Corruption Project—and why [I hope you'll consider supporting it and all of our reporting today](. Then there's the Mueller report, and where we are now. When Mueller’s report finally appeared, headlines noted that the president’s own aides had stopped some of his most overt efforts to obstruct justice. But I had a different take: Reading the report, I was struck by the extent to which Trump did succeed in restricting Mueller’s investigation. The report actually showed Trump getting away with outrageous acts. Trump [pressured]( Jeff Sessions to order a politically motivated investigation of Clinton. Then Trump ousted Sessions and got Barr instead. Trump dangled pardons that appear to have [helped]( stop Paul Manafort, Stone, and others from cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. That's the big story, and MoJo's avoidance of some feigned neutrality helps us accurately and fully portray the report—which isn't something journalists are always at liberty to do when you answer to risk-averse investors, advertisers, or a corporate parent company. [Your support lets us—encourages us—to look at the forces behind the individual headlines and call it like we see it](. That’s going to matter a lot these next 18 months leading up until the election, and it's a [key part of our Corruption Project](: treating corruption as a systemic problem, not just isolated events. In the last two years, we've seen that the institutions and norms of our political system provide much less of a check on lawlessness and corruption than most of us thought a few years ago. Our Corruption Project won't eliminate it on its own, but I know that doubling down on exposing malfeasance helps reduce it, and I hope you'll join the team [with a donation to support all of us at Mother Jones today](. It truly is a team effort. I'm blown away by the reporting my colleagues produce every day. Here in the DC bureau, we are often fired up, angry about powerful liars, and excited because we get to try to set the record straight. Despite the challenges, it's a lot more fun than you'd think.   Thanks for reading, and thanks for making our jobs possible and meaningful. Dan Friedman Foreign Influence and National Security Reporter Mother Jones P.S. Our fundraising team asked me to include this—if you've donated in the last several hours, thanks! And please accept our apologies for sending you this reminder. [DONATE]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings](E2%80%8B). Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]() PO Box 3029, Langhorne, PA 19047-9129