Trial opens for Roger Stone, accused of lying about WikiLeaks and Trump campaign’s interest in hacked 2016 Democratic emails
Stone, a longtime Trump adviser and political consultant, was charged in January in a seven-count indictment. Prosecutors contend he lied on several points: when he told the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017 that he did not havetexts or emails about his 2016 discussions surrounding WikiLeaks; said that he had only one associate who tried to act as a go-between with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange; and claimed he never spoke to anyone in the Trump campaign about WikiLeaks’ plans.
The federal trial in Washington, D.C., before Judge Amy Berman Jackson is expected to last about two weeks.
A trove of Stone’s communications with Trump insiders including exchanges with former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Manafort deputy Rick Gates likely will figure prominently given allegations in the charges. The trial overall could offer a sharper look at the eagerness of some in Trump’s orbit to find damaging information to derail Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential run.
Stone, a self described “agent provocateur” of American conservative politics, has said any misstatements he made were unintentional and that he is a victim of politically motivated attacks against the president. Stone first met Trump in the 1980s and had encouraged him to run for the White House since the 1990s.
The defense team led by Bruce S. Rogow disputes the legitimacy of Mueller’s investigation. But in pretrial hearings, they failed in attemptsto challenge the special counsel’s central finding that Moscow had a primary role in “sweeping and systemic” cyber-interference in the 2016 election, including hacking and releasing emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, among others.
Rogow has not said if Stone would testify in his own defense, but left open that possibility.
Prosecutors have said their first witness will be the former lead FBI agent in the case, Michelle Taylor.
Jackson, a 2011 Obama appointee, has rejected Stone’s claims that he was selectively prosecuted, saying he had only himself to blame for coming under investigation for his alleged lies after taking public credit for the WikiLeaks release and suggesting he had inside information about more to come.
Ultimately, Mueller did not charge anyone associated with Trump’s campaign of working with Russia or WikiLeaks to release stolen information, and Mueller’s report did not accuse anyone of having advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.
The witness tampering charge against Stone stems from Stone’s alleged attempt to persuade a witness who also was to testify before the congressional panel to say falsely either that he was an intermediary for contacts with WikiLeaks or could not recall anything he had said to Stone.
Stone was put under a court gag order that bars him from commenting about the case or prosecutors after his repeated social media postings attacking his indictment, the conduct of federal agents and intelligence agencies, actions that the judge said before trial might impair the ability to seat an impartial jury. Stone’s Instagram account also had shown a photograph of Jackson’s face next to what appeared to be the crosshairs of a gun scope.
