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Donald Trump’s day started off bad and only got worse.
In the dark and quiet of 4:00am, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents stormed the Florida home of his mentor and friend Roger Stone, armed with an indictment from Special Counsel prosecutor Robert Mueller.
CNN, one of the President’s least-favourite television networks, was also there, beaming the dramatic pictures to Americans across the country.
To make matters even more embarrassing, the FBI agents were working on a volunteer basis.
They’d been furloughed by the longest-running government shutdown in United States history, which the President has been widely blamed for.
But by the end of the day, they’d be back at work with the President announcing a stunning capitulation to end the impasse.
It may have been planned, but pundits were quick to call it a distraction tactic.
Trump ends the shutdown empty-handed
The President once said he’d be proud to take ownership of this shutdown.
But after 35 days of damaging headlines, Mr Trump was left with 800,000 angry federal workers, anxious congressional Republican allies, falling poll numbers and frustrated supporters.
And with the deal he struck today, all the shutdown achieved was making the incoming Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi look like a genius, and Mr Trump’s own hyped negotiating skills look deeply lacking.
It doesn’t look good for the President’s odds at winning the additional battles he’ll see for the next two years with a divided Congress.
Though touted as a bipartisan victory, Mr Trump’s concession skipped the $US5.7 billion ($7.9 billion) he’d demanded to fund a border wall.
Or, at least, it’s delayed that funding deal for the next three weeks.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will assemble a security package for the President to consider. He’s hinted that he may still declare a national emergency if he doesn’t get his way.
Still, this move — to open the Government while Congress continues debating border security — is exactly what the Democrats have been urging the President to do for the past month.
CNN called it “a cave”.
Add this to the news about Mr Stone, and Mr Trump’s had one rough day.
So who is Mr Stone?
Mr Stone has known Mr Trump for decades and today he was hit with a seven-count indictment.
Five of the charges relate to giving misleading evidence, one to persuading another witness to do the same, and one of misleading a House inquiry.
The misleading one is allegedly about his efforts to pass information about a WikiLeaks hack of Democratic emails to the 2016 Trump campaign.
Mr Trump’s one-time mentor is a self-confessed “dirty trickster” known for attack politics going all the way back to the Reagan administration.
In fact, he even has a tattoo of “Tricky Dick” Richard Nixon on his back.
And he didn’t hesitate to invoke the disgraced former president after exiting the courthouse on bail, raising his arms in a victory salute.
Mr Stone smiled leaving court today. However, the 24-page indictment sets out in meticulous detail how he claimed to have no knowledge of the hack, but allegedly privately told Trump officials a load would be coming every week.
He even said it in media interviews at the time, but later attempted to change his story.
Mr Stone is also charged with witness tampering, allegedly telling an individual listed by Mr Mueller as “Person 2” (believed to be conservative radio host Randy Credico) to do a “Frank Pentangeli” — a reference to a famous scene from the Godfather, in which a witness embarrasses the FBI by claiming not to know who the Godfather is.
There’s no direct link to Mr Trump.
He’s not referenced in the documents, and the White House quickly said this had nothing to do with them.
The President himself spoke out on Twitter, decrying it all as a witch hunt.
The charges are bound to have rippling effects
It is true that none of the charges today are for collusion — rather they are for attempting to cover up other actions.
The indictment shows that Mr Mueller and his team are aware of extensive contacts between Mr Stone and WikiLeaks through intermediaries.
The Trump campaign even congratulated Mr Stone on his good work as they watched the hacked emails damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton.
While Mr Stone continues to say there was no collusion, even he expected to be charged.
In an interview with a US network last year, Mr Stone said it was “not inconceivable that Mr Mueller and his team could conjure up some extraneous crime”.
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