Posted on 02/13/2019 6:22:49 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Republican strategist Roger Stone has filed a motion to show cause to determine if the nature of his sealed indictment was violated by the media’s presence at his much-hyped early morning arrest at his Florida home. A CNN reporter from the nation’s capital was present at the Florida arrest.
“Defendant Roger J. Stone, Jr., requests a show cause order to determine whether the Court’s Order sealing the indictment of Roger J. Stone until his arrest, was violated by the premature release of a draft copy of the sealed indictment, enabling news media to attend and witness Stone’s 6 a.m. arrest,” the order states.
“The FBI arrested Roger Stone at 6:06 a.m. on January 25, 2019. At that time the indictment remained subject to the Court’s Order sealing it from public disclosure. At 4:58 a.m. a news crew and truck arrived at Mr. Stone’s residence and set up a camera on the street in front ofMr. Stone’s house, obviously awaiting his arrest. The FBI arrived while the camera crew was on the street. At 6:11 a.m., prior to Mr. or Mrs. Stone calling counsel, a reporter for the same news outlet as the camera crew called counsel and informed him that Mr. Stone had been arrested. At 6:22 a.m., the same reporter sent counsel a text message attaching a draft copy of the still sealed indictment. (See Exhibit 1). The copy of the unsigned indictment provided by the reporter appears to have come from the Special Counsel’s Office,” the motion states.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigleaguepolitics.com ...
Gag orders should be unconstitutional.
Leaking and then imposing a gag order on the accused is show trial, banana republic level stuff.
I could see third parties being put under gag orders but people arrested and accused of crimes publicly being told they cannot tell their story absolutely should be unconstitutional, especially when the government can violate them at will by leaking from “sources close to the investigation”.
And that’s being kind. And you don’t even get the bananas, they don’t grow here.
I don’t know if it was the sealed indictment that was leaked. There were dozens of people who knew he was going to be arrested. It was well planned and exhaustively executed. Someone involved tipped them off.
Good strategy to force the FBI thugs and Federal prosecutors to defend the indefensible. Sure, this kanagroo judge could yield to thuggery over logic and defend the gestapo. But, that would be a joke and further reduce the credibility and reputation of the Federal “justice” system. She could agree that the jury pool would be poisoned. But if she rejected that, the only real option is that the raid was an intimidation tactic.
I hope other defense lawyers use this strategy. It might result in more restrained use of tact squads by law enforcement and prosecutors.
The Feds have got to start losing cases across the board.
Any way you look at it, the FBI suffers yet another well deserved knock on their already horrendous reputation. The judge can add more loathing and contempt for Federal judiciary if she sides with the thugs.
CNN provided Stone's lawyer with a PDF copy of the sealed indictment hours before the court was notified, even before he had heard from Stone, and hours before it was unsealed by the court. And the copy provided by CNN is identical to the filed version.
It was leaked by somebody with access.
The metadata indicates it was authored by "AAW" which appears to fit Andrew Weissmann of the counsel's office.
THIS.
Someone should be prosecuted. Stone can’t prosecute but he can move for contempt and/or file a bar complaint.
The National Security Clearances for Mueller and his entire team should have been pulled by now. No more access to SECRET documents for them.
The Nazis did the same thing. They’d people on trial and not allow them to defend themselves. It always ended with them being hanged.
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