Tag: Trump advisor Stone

Judge swats down Roger Stone’s effort to disqualify her as publicity stunt

Washington Post logoThe federal judge who oversaw Roger Stone’s trial and sentenced him last week to 40 months in prison dismissed his demand that she be taken off the case as a baseless smear on Sunday.

“Given the absence of any factual or legal support for the motion for disqualification, the pleading appears to be nothing more than an attempt to use the Court’s docket to disseminate a statement for public consumption that has the words ‘judge’ and ‘biased’ in it,” wrote U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia.

Stone’s motion sought to disqualify Berman Jackson for referring during Thursday’s sentencing to “the jurors who served with integrity under difficult circumstances.” He is still challenging one juror as biased. Continue reading.

Roger Stone asked for a judge’s removal. It may be more fuel for a Trump pardon, experts say.

Washington Post logoRoger Stone, just sentenced to 40 months in prison for impeding a congressional investigation of Russian election interference, is seeking the removal of the federal judge who sentenced him, in the latest turn of a bizarre legal odyssey involving President Trump’s longtime friend and political adviser.

The case has been fraught with political overtones as President Trump and conservative commentators have leveled broadsides against U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson and the jury’s forewoman, saying political bias has tainted the proceedings.

And that, former federal prosecutors say, is why Stone’s defense team may have thrown a Hail Mary in its motion for Jackson to recuse herself — not to win a new trial, but to win political intervention in the future. Continue reading.

Stone faces sentencing amid political firestorm

The Hill logoRoger Stone is set to be sentenced Thursday in the midst of a growing political controversy after the Trump administration intervened in his case to push for a lighter prison sentence than originally sought by prosecutors.

President Trump himself helped ignite the controversy, loudly calling for a light sentence for his longtime ally, attacking the original prosecution team and using the case to declare himself the nation’s “chief law enforcement officer.”

A firestorm engulfing the sentencing process over the past week has quickly eclipsed the facts of the case, which centers around what Stone told Congress about his role as a back channel between the 2016 Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, which was releasing damaging stolen emails from then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee at the time. Continue reading.