Judge tightens gag order on Stone, warns he could be jailed

World
Europe

U.S. Judge Amy Berman Jackson Thursday ordered President Donald Trump's former political adviser Roger Stone to stop speaking publicly about U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's criminal case against him or else he will be sent to jail pending trial.

Judge Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a tense court hearing on Thursday that Stone's apology and explanations for why he posted a photo of her next to the image of the crosshairs of a gun on his Instagram account were not credible.

Jackson made her ruling after a highly unusual hearing in which Stone, who is charged with crimes related to Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, took the stand to testify about the posting.

Stone's seemingly contradictory statements and at times foggy recollections about the post's origins during a cross-examination by the government frustrated Jackson, who later concluded he "could not even keep his story straight on the stand."

Stone apologized to the judge for the post on Instagram and asked for a second chance. "Thank you, but the apology rings quite hollow," Jackson told Stone.

Roger Stone, former political adviser of U.S. President Donald Trump, outside a U.S. District Court in Washington, February 21, 2019. /Reuters Photo

"What all of this means, Mr. Stone, is that any violation of this order will be a basis for revoking your bond and detaining you pending trial. So I want to be clear – today I gave you a second chance. But this is not baseball. There will not be a third chance."

Jackson had ordered Stone to appear in court to review whether the posting on his Instagram account violated his conditions of release and a narrowly tailored media gag order she imposed last week. He is out on a 250,000-U.S.-dollar bond and is free to travel without court permission to certain cities.

The media gag order did not explicitly bar Stone from speaking publicly about the case as long as he was not on courthouse grounds. However, it cautioned him to tread carefully and said he would not be able to complain later if he decided his own comments had tainted the jury pool.

The original posting on Monday on Stone's Instagram account not only contained a photo of Jackson next to the crosshairs but also had text that ranted against Mueller as a "hitman" and called Jackson "an Obama-appointed judge" a reference to Trump's Democratic predecessor in the White House.

Longtime Trump ally Roger Stone during an interview with Reuters in Washington, January 31, 2019. /Reuters Photo

Stone later took the image down and apologized, but afterward he gave an interview on conspiracy website Infowars defending the post.

Stone, a longtime Republican political operative, a friend of Trump and self-proclaimed "dirty trickster," was arrested on January 25. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements to the Congress, obstruction and witness tampering.

Besides probing the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Moscow ran an operation to hack Democratic Party computers and spread disinformation to undermine candidate Hillary Clinton and the American electoral process, Mueller is also investigating possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow officials.

(Cover: Roger Stone, former political adviser of U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, February 21, 2019. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): Reuters