Roger Stone Doesn't Want DC Jury to Learn About His Trump Campaign Contacts at Upcoming Trial
The effort to not disclose how often Stone was in touch with the Trump campaign comes after Stone's lawyers invoked their client's relationship with the president as reason to believe he was being selectively prosecuted and that the charges against him should be dismissed.
September 23, 2019 at 07:08 PM
6 minute read
Roger Stone hasn't shied away from touting his relationship with President Donald Trump—until now.
Lawyers for Stone, at one time an adviser to the Trump campaign, previously argued in court that he was facing retaliation due to his ties with Trump,
Now Stone is objecting to a jury potentially seeing a chart showing how often he was in touch with the campaign in 2016.
The chart is one of 187 proposed exhibits federal prosecutors want to use during Stone's upcoming November trial, according to a partially redacted filing made Monday.
The Justice Department states in the filing that it wants to show a "chart showing number of written communications between Stone and Trump campaign officials in 2016."
But Stone's attorneys don't want the chart to be shown in court in all. They're raising four different objections to the proposed exhibit, according to Monday's filing: relevance, best evidence, unduly prejudicial and completeness.
Exactly how many Trump campaign officials Stone was in touch with back in 2016 is unclear. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon emailed back and forth with Stone at one point during the campaign, according to emails obtained and published last year by The New York Times.
The indictment against Stone also refers to contacts between him and Trump campaign officials, but does not provide names. However, a document made in Stone's case earlier this month that appeared to have been publicly filed by mistake did include the names of some campaign staffers.
Bannon was named in that document, as was former campaign head Paul Manafort, former campaign official Rick Gates and ex-adviser Sam Nunberg.
It's unclear exactly who will be testifying in Stone's trial, although Gates—who has cooperated with then-special counsel Robert Mueller—may be on deck to appear in court come November. Stone is the only individual charged in the case.
Mueller claimed in the complaint filed against Stone in January that he "maintained regular contact with" the Trump campaign through the 2016 election.
"During the summer of 2016, Stone spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign," the indictment states, referring to WikiLeaks as "Organization 1."
"Stone was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1."
The indictment also alleged that a "senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign. Stone thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1."
Stone is charged with making false statements during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee about his contacts with WikiLeaks, including about his communications with the Trump campaign about WikiLeaks.
The GOP strategist is alleged to have lied during that testimony when he said he never spoke with any Trump campaign members about his contacts with a third party, who in turn was in touch with WikiLeaks.
"Stone spoke to multiple individuals involved in the Trump Campaign about what he claimed to have learned from his intermediary to" WikiLeaks, the indictment reads.
The effort to not disclose how often Stone was in touch with the Trump campaign comes after Stone's lawyers invoked their client's relationship with the president as reason to believe he was being selectively prosecuted and that the charges against him should be dismissed.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia, who is presiding over Stone's case, disagreed.
"Based on the allegations in the indictment which are assumed to be true for purposes of these motions, it is fair to say that Roger Stone has no one but himself to blame for the fact that he was investigated by the Department of Justice," Jackson wrote in an opinion issued in August.
Stone's attorneys are objecting to 11 of the exhibits in total, and have "objections reserved" for another.
The vast majority of the exhibits listed in Monday's filing appear to be messages between Stone and other individuals.
The names of the people messaging with Stone are redacted. But Jerome Corsi and Randy Credico, the two men largely referred to throughout Stone's indictment, are likely featured heavily among the redactions.
Stone's attorneys filed their own exhibit list later Monday, including 156 proposed exhibits. The vast majority of those listed Corsi and Credico by name.
Neither man has been charged in the case, although Credico has been subpoenaed to appear in court for Stone's trial.
Stone's legal team are also against the full transcript of Stone's testimony with the House Intelligence Committee, labeling it as "hearsay" and "unduly prejudicial," among other objections.
Their opposition to at least one other proposed exhibit was already known: A clip from "The Godfather Part II."
Federal prosecutors want to show a clip from the movie to explain a reference Stone made in a text to Credico, as he encouraged his then-associate to not testify before the House Intelligence panel.
Stone's lawyers argued in a court filing earlier this month that allowing the jury to view the four-minute clip, showing the fictional mafia member Frank Pentangeli lying to a Senate committee, will cause their client to appear like famed fictional mob boss Michael Corleone.
"It makes Roger Stone the Michael Corleone character in this analogy—an iconic violent godfather of the Mafia," Stone's lawyers wrote in the August filing.
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