Federal prosecutors in the case against Roger Stone told the judge Thursday they believe recent posts by the former Trump associate on social media violate the court’s gag order.
Jessie Liu, the U.S. attorney for D.C., filed a notice with U.S. District Court Judge Amy Jackson on Thursday evening, alleging that, on June 18 and 19, Stone posted on Instagram and Facebook “commenting about this case and inviting news organizations to cover the issue.”
“This is a violation of the current conditions of release, and the government accordingly calls it to the Court’s attention,” prosecutors alleged.
Stone has been charged with obstructing a congressional investigation by making numerous false statements to Congress and tampering with witnesses.
Jackson had entered a gag order in the case back in February, prohibiting Stone from making statements to the media or in public settings about the investigation or anyone involved. That gag order extended to radio, TV, interviews, press, blogs, and all social media.
But that went out the window when Stone posted an image of the judge with crosshairs on Instagram.
While Stone apologized, Jackson didn’t buy it.
“You appear to need clear boundaries, so there they are,” Jackson said, imposing the harsher gag order.
Prosecutors say that Stone has blatantly violated that more restrictive gag order in recent days, saying that he “posted statements on social media about this case and the Special Counsel’s investigation and appears to have specifically targeted those posts at major media outlets.”
Over the past couple days, Stone posted multiple times on Instagram and Facebook about his claims related to the FBI and CrowdStrike, the firm hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate the hacking of DNC systems in 2016 that determined that it was carried out by the Russians. Stone alleges that the FBI relied on CrowdStrike to make its determinations about Russian culpability, a claim which the DOJ denies, stating that the special counsel came to these conclusions through an independent investigation.
In an extensive footnote, prosecutors also pointed to previous social media posts in April, May, and June that they believed clearly violated the gag order as well. And they asked the judge to set up a court hearing to address these issues.
