Prosecutors claim Roger Stone violated gag order with his social media posts
Federal prosecutors in a new court filing Thursday allege that longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone has violated his gag order in his criminal case with recent social media posts.
Stone was subject to a judicial order barring him from commenting about matters involving the Russia investigation and his own criminal trial.
At issue are posts Stone started making Tuesday, including a message asking why several major news organizations didn’t cover a recent filing his lawyers made arguing that the government did not independently verify that Russian operatives hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016. (Politico)
“At best, Stone’s efforts could create the misimpression that this case is about issues that are not charged in the Indictment, and risk the trial ‘devolv[ing] into a circus,’” the prosecutors said, citing Jackson’s own words. “But worse, it could confuse prospective jurors or color how they later view the actually-relevant evidence and understand the Court’s instructions about that evidence.”
In two of the posts, Stone tagged multiple media outlets, including The Washington Post and The New York Times. CNN and The Wall Street Journal were also tagged in one post.
The court papers also reference a now-deleted Stone Instagram post on June 2 that showed a picture of former CIA director John Brennan with the message, “This psycho must be charged, tried, convicted . . . . and hung for treason.”
Roger Stone photo/donkeyhotey
Also included in the government’s filing is Stone’s comment, written on Instagram, about a May report in POLITICO describing Jackson’s order to see any unredacted portions of the Mueller report related to his case. “The Judge has ruled but @Politico gets most of the story wrong because they are biased elitist snot-nosed fake news shitheads who’s specialty is distortion by omitting key facts to create a false narrative. #rogerstonedidnothingwrong #rogerstone #fakenews,” Stone’s post said.
