Roger Stone

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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:46 pm

Special counsel Robert Mueller focusing sharply on links between Trump confidant Roger Stone and former campaign official Rick Gates, sources say

Brian Schwartz3:24 PM ET Thu, 3 May 2018 | 00:57
Special counsel Robert Mueller is focusing intensely on alleged interactions between former top Trump campaign official Rick Gates and political operative Roger Stone, one of President Donald Trump's closest confidants, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Stone, a longtime advisor to Trump, is apparently one of the top subjects of the Mueller investigation into potential collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, sources told CNBC on condition of anonymity.

The questions have been largely about what was discussed at meetings, including dinners, between Stone and Gates, before and during the campaign, said the sources, who have knowledge of the substance of the recent interviews.

In February, Gates pleaded guilty to two counts stemming from the Russia investigation, and he is cooperating with Mueller's probe.

The new developments indicate that Mueller's team is interested in Stone beyond his interactions with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange during the campaign.

An attorney for Stone, Robert Buschel, did not deny discussions took place between his client and Gates, but sought to downplay their importance.

"Roger Stone did not have any substantive or meaningful interaction with Rick Gates during or leading up to the 2016 campaign," Buschel told CNBC in a statement.

An attorney for Gates declined to comment. The special counsel's office declined to comment.

The link between Gates and Stone goes back to their work at what had been one of the most powerful lobbying firms in Washington, which was founded by Stone along with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The special counsel's probe has yielded two indictments against Manafort, who is accused of several crimes, including bank fraud and conspiracy against the United States.

Gates joined the firm as an intern more three decades ago, and it is unclear how much work he did with Stone at the time.

Richard Gates, former associate to Paul Manafort, leaves the Prettyman Federal Courthouse after a hearing February 23, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images

Richard Gates, former associate to Paul Manafort, leaves the Prettyman Federal Courthouse after a hearing February 23, 2018 in Washington, DC.

The firm, called Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, was known for its work to help improve the image of controversial politicians, including Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Russian-aligned former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.

Gates joined the Trump campaign in the spring of 2016 and became Manafort's deputy. It was there where he became close to many of Trump's confidants. He remained with the campaign even after Manafort's ouster. Gates then worked on Trump's inaugural committee and co-founded the pro-Trump nonprofit group America First Policies.

In March, Gates was pulled into the Mueller inquiry when the special counsel's office filed a motion that claimed the former campaign aide had contact with a former agent of the Russian intelligence service in 2016. This came after Gates pleaded guilty to lying and conspiring against the United States, which could lead to possibly six years in prison. A sentencing date has yet to be announced.

For Stone, this is another potential hurdle in an ongoing investigation that continues to focus on him, among others.

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign advisor, also said he was asked about Stone's involvement with Wikileaks during his interview before Mueller's grand jury in March.

"Roger is certainly a subject," Nunberg said. "The fact that Roger hasn't been called in and the special counsel continues to ask questions about Roger's possible activities during the election shows that at the very least he's a subject."

Stone allegedly met with Assange, the Wikileaks founder, in August 2016. In an email leaked to The Wall Street Journal, Stone said, "I dined with my new pal Julian Assange last nite."

Stone has denied that he has met with the Wikileaks founder and said the email was in jest.

During the 2016 campaign, Wikileaks published emails allegedly stolen from the Democratic National Committee's servers by a Russia-linked hacker known as "Guccifer 2.0."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/mueller ... ter%7Cmain
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:17 pm

Feds had terabytes of evidence from the Icloud relating to Roger Stone case and are still processing evidence from devices (plural) seized in search warrants. Communications span several years. No way this is just a false statements case. No way.
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Feb 01, 2019 5:14 pm

Fake FCC Comments Linked to Ex-Trump Campaign Director's Org, Boosted By Roger Stone

Dell CameronYesterday 4:49pm

Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net neutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC.
Photo: Getty / Chip Somodevilla
An organization run by a former Trump campaign statewide director is being investigated by the New York attorney general’s office for its role in the submission of potentially hundreds of thousands of fraudulent comments to the Federal Communications Commission during the agency’s 2017 efforts to rollback Obama-era net neutrality rules.

Research by Gizmodo reveals the group’s deep ties to prominent GOP firms, including one paid more than $31 million by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to provide email lists of potential voters during the 2016 campaign. Americans whose names were attached to fraudulent FCC comments linked to the ex-Trump campaign staffer confirmed during a series of interviews that their identities had been stolen.

Asked how their names wound up on the FCC’s website next comments slamming “wealthy leftist billionaires and powerful Silicon Valley monopolies,” the residents of Sharpsburg, Georgia, were reasonably confused. Like two retirees in their 80s whom Gizmodo spoke with on Wednesday, many residents say they’ve never even heard of net neutrality.

But in Sharpsburg, a town of less than 400, roughly a quarter of the population seemingly filed comments with the FCC about net neutrality—at least according to its website. Of those comments, 37 are perfectly identical: “It took only two years and a green light from Obama for companies like Google and Facebook and their liberal allies like George Soros to take total control of the dominant information and communications platform in the world today,” they read. “The future of a free and open Internet is at stake.”

The husband of one of Sharpsburg’s purported commenters insists that no one in his home is political. “We don’t do anything that has to do with the government,” he said, straining to understand the implications of someone impersonating his wife on a government website. Another resident, reached by email on Wednesday, and asked if she’d submitted a comment to the FCC, offered a short, but emphatic reply: “No I did NOT.”

“Whoever did this is stupid,” said another man, after learning his name and address had been used without his consent. “They won’t find my IP address anywhere near this. And I’d be happy to talk to police about it.” A total of five Sharpsburg residents, whose names had been used to send identical comments to the FCC, told Gizmodo this week that their identities must have been stolen.

More than a year ago, another resident of the small, predominately white town, less than 50 miles south of Atlanta, was also struggling to understand how so many of his neighbors had gotten riled up about the FCC policy, which would be overturned in a party-line vote a few weeks later. On Medium, James Harvey documented his efforts going door to door asking the question. Recalling Harvey’s efforts a month prior to the December 2017 FCC vote, Quartz reported that he had spoken to around 10 residents of Sharpsburg to whom FCC comments had been attributed. None said they had sent them.

“In our current era of lightning fast streams of information, it is up to each and every one of us to learn to see through falsehoods and propaganda,” wrote Harvey, who learned that one man’s obituary predated his comment by more than a year.

What’s remained unreported until now is the source of the 37 identical Sharpsburg comments, which match those submitted on behalf of more than 300,000 Americans nationwide. That comment, which rails against Google, its former chairman Eric Schmidt, and “global billionaires like George Soros,” was authored by a group known as Free Our Internet, according to a page on its website, which has since been deleted.

Free Our Internet’s campaign against net neutrality, which it presents as a conspiracy by “liberal globalists to take over our Internet,” was first announced in a now-deleted press release on the website of Raven Strategies, a political consultancy whose client list includes, among others, Donald Trump for President.


Christie-Lee McNally, the president of Raven Strategies and the executive director of Free Our Internet, was tapped by Trump two years ago to become his statewide director in Maine, where she formerly served as executive director for the Republican Party. According to the bio on her firm’s website, she also served on the 58th presidential inaugural committee, working with cabinet-level nominees on the day of Trump’s swearing-in.

Her organization, Free Our Internet, is also the subject of one of 14 subpoenas issued in October by the New York attorney general’s office, which, like the Department of Justice, is currently investigating widespread accounts of identity theft related to the FCC’s net neutrality process.

Free Our Internet

Three months ago, investigators in New York overseen by then-state Attorney General Barbara Underwood, identified what they called four “buckets” of comments suspected of being counterfeit. Out of the more than 22 million comments submitted to the FCC about net neutrality in 2017, investigators believe that as many as 9.53 million involved the use of stolen identities. These buckets include multiple trade associations, advocacy groups, and lobbying contractors, both for and against the net neutrality rules.

In an email obtained by Gizmodo to reporters at other news sites in October, Underwood’s staff provided, on condition of anonymity, a list of the four “buckets” and the parties each contain. But McNally’s group, Free Our Internet, while listed in one of the buckets, is not among those to be previously reported on. This is likely because the focus has, until now, been on larger and more prominently known organizations, such as the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF), a decades-old dark-money group founded by former tobacco industry executives to, initially, combat government restrictions on smoking.

Today, with funding from Republican figures like Karl Rove, CFIF lobbies to overturn FCC rules and policies disapproved of by the telecommunications industry. The comments it contributed about net neutrality are now being scrutinized by both state and federal law enforcement agencies for any trace of stolen identities.


Archived from Roger Stone’s now-suspended Twitter account.
Screenshot: Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine
By comparison, Free Our Internet has a small online footprint—this despite being the apparent source of upwards of 800,000 gathered comments. The organization’s submission page, meant to be the online portal through which all those comments were collected, has been tweeted no more than two dozen times. Free Our Internet’s website was boosted on occasion, however, by a few well-known characters on the far-right, such as longtime Trump adviser and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone and his one-time friend, conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi.

On Tuesday, Stone pleaded not guilty in federal court to charges of lying to Congress and obstructing the special counsel’s Russia investigation. (Incidentally, in October, federal prosecutors also described in the indictment of Russian accountant Elena Khusyaynova how net neutrality became a key focus of Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at exploiting Americans’ existing political and societal divisions.)

Writing on the topic of net neutrality, which is attributed to Stone—but which is suspiciously granular in its take on U.S. communications policies—mirrors closely the advocacy literature drafted by McNally and Free Our Internet. In a Daily Caller op-ed awash in anti-Semitic dogwhistles in October 2017, Stone claimed that net neutrality was a conspiracy by the “Tech Left, largely funded by George Soros,” whose motivation, he wrote, is “ridding the Internet of conservative and libertarian content.” (An obscure descriptor, “tech left” is frequently used by McNally in op-eds published by Breitbart News.)

One net neutrality letter authored by Free Our Internet, submitted to the FCC at least 181,101 times, similarly reads: “I strongly encourage the FCC to oppose efforts by the TechLeft and liberal globalists to take over our Internet.” The letter insists further that net neutrality is the brainchild of “Silicon Valley monopolies like Google and leftist globalists like George Soros.”


Screenshot: InfoWars.com
In a June 2017 press release, which Corsi highlighted in a blog on conspiracy site InfoWars, McNally is quoted again referencing the “globalist elites like George Soros,” whom she says “launched a coordinated campaign with the Obama Administration to establish government control over our internet.” Corsi’s article continued: “As Infowars.com has repeatedly warned, Soros-allied forces on the far-left coined the intentionally deceptive ‘Net Neutrality’ phrase to deceive the public into thinking the Obama-era rules would preserve the Internet as a free marketplace of ideas, when the reality remains ‘Net Neutrality’ rules were designed to accomplish precisely the opposite.”

Notably, there’s negligible contrast between the “globalist” theories pushed by McNally, Stone, and Corsi, and those that had circulated two years prior on the prominent neo-Nazi website Stormfront, whose users are less prone to masking prejudices with code words. (The term “globalists” and Soros himself, whose home was targeted by a pipe bomb last year, are frequently crucial elements of conspiracy theories with strong anti-Semitic elements.)

In an early 2015 post, one Stormfront user wrote regarding net neutrality: “The fact that the lobbying for this measure was sponsored (to the tune of tens of millions of dollars) by George Soros (who is not only one of the wealthiest of the 1% but also a well-known sponsor of far-Left causes and a Jew) should be ringing alarm bells in your head.”

There also exists tentative ties between Free Our Internet and organizations funded by Big Telecom. Among the financial supporters listed on the group’s website is the conservative National Hispanic Fund (NHF), which is reported to receive funding telecom lobbyists. NHF has also been listed as a member of Broadband for America, which is another of the 14 parties subpoenaed by the New York attorney general. Citing leaked tax records, Vice News previously reported that, in 2012, Broadband for America took in more than half its funding, or $2 million, from the National Cable and Telecom Association (NCTA), a trade group that represents, among others, the Comcast Corporation and Cox Communications.

Free Our Internet also lists America’s Future Fund PAC and an “anonymous foundation supporter” among its donors.

McNally and Stone did not respond to a request for comment.

An anonymous uploader

The Free Our Internet comments, which the residents of Sharpsburg insist they didn’t submit, were uploaded in bulk files to the FCC’s website in May 2017. While users can visit the commission’s website and submit unique comments they’ve written themselves, it is now more common for advocacy groups to gather comments on their own, and then submit them to the FCC in large batches using its API. These comments are often identical, with users simply attaching their names to statements pre-written by the groups. For this reason, not all identical comments can be written off as the work of bots or stolen identities.

But typically, these organizations submit the comments using email accounts that are clearly marked as belonging to a specific person or group. It stands to reason, if the comments are legitimate, there’s no reason to anonymize their source. The comments submitted by the digital rights group Fight for the Future, for instance, can be clearly identified as uploaded by a member of its staff. In the case of Free Our Internet’s comments, however, the person who uploaded them took special care not to be identified.

Independent journalist Jason Prechtel, in a recent Medium post, released a cache of Microsoft Excel files obtained from the FCC under the Freedom of Information Act, which, Prechtel wrote, “collectively contain nearly 3.4 million rows filled with name, address, and comment data corresponding to the submission fields” used by the FCC’s comment system. This data, which he sued the FCC to obtain, represents roughly 15 percent of the total comments submitted to the commission during the net neutrality public-commenting period.

The comments originating from Free Our Internet referencing “leftist globalists like George Soros” were submitted using a toss-away account registered with anonymous-email provider Hide My Ass. Although unconfirmed, it also appears the uploader may have committed an error, which may help investigators in uncovering their identity.


Screenshot: Jason Pretchel
The Free Our Internet comments are contained in files using a unique naming convention: For example, one batch file is labeled 2017508FOI.csv, with “FOI” being a reference to Free Our Internet. Notably, the same account uploaded other files with that same name format that include the initials “TPA,” an apparent reference to a separate organization called Taxpayer Protection Alliance (TPA). The New York attorney general’s office likewise believes TPA submitted fraudulent comments, potentially on behalf of, or in coordination with, Free Our Internet, according to the October email to reporters.

As Prechtel notes, the same Hide My Ass account (fccfreedom@hmamail) also uploaded multiple files using a different format: F2017509-2.csv; T2017509-2.csv; F2017510-1.csv; et cetera. An initial, followed by a date, followed by a hyphen, and then a number.


Screenshot: Jason Pretchel
Two hours after the last upload from the Hide My Ass account in May 2017, another email address began uploading files in the same format: An initial, followed by a date, followed by a hyphen, and then a number. In this instance, however, the email account behind the uploads was not created using a service whose aim is anonymity, but was registered instead with Apple. Moreover, the same Apple account is also seen in the logs uploading its own batch of “FOI” comments.

The New York investigators believe these particular sets of comments may be further connected to a GOP consultant named Ethan Eilon, who’s worked for assorted Republican campaigns and organizations, including Vertical Strategies, a political firm that’s also been subpoenaed.

Another group, Protect Internet Freedom, was also subpoenaed and is listed in the same bucket alongside Free Our Internet and Eilon, who previously served on its advisory board. It’s national director, Drew Johnson, a Daily Caller columnist, served as a senior scholar at the Taxpayer Protection Alliance, according to a now-deleted bio on the group’s former website.

It has also been documented—and confirmed by Gizmodo—that in the code of a defunct comment submission page run by Protect Internet Freedom, there contains an iframe element calling the website ConnectFCC.com. This site is registered to entity called “Net Freedom Ring,” which is run by McNally, and is basically synonymous with Free Our Internet (as is seen in this tweet promoting a Roger Stone InfoWars interview).


Reverse IP lookup results: 14 of 22 domains hosted on IP address 52.23.25.34
Screenshot: domaintools.com
Gizmodo, using domain tools, found that multiple Protect Internet Freedom websites—including DontTreadOnTheNet.com—were cohosted on a server with numerous conservative groups of which Eilon either ran or has been a member, such as the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). The domains additionally include several GOP campaign websites and a firm called Conservative Connector, which according to campaign finance records, received during the 2016 cycle more than $31 million from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising effort by the RNC and Trump campaign.

Conservative Connector, which Eilon helmed with ex-Rand Paul adviser John Yob, was profiled in December 2016 by the Washington Post. The coverage of it marvels at the fact that a “small Michigan-based firm” has risen to become the RNC’s primary email list provider.

While Eilon, who could not be reached for comment, is among the parties subpoenaed by the New York attorney general, as of October, neither Conservative Connector nor Yob had been served. It remains unknown, however, which individuals and groups are being scrutinized in the Justice Department investigation, which was first revealed last month by former BuzzFeed reporter Kevin Collier and data editor Jeremy Singer-Vine.

Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, who has repeatedly pressed the FCC for answers about potential malfeasance during the net neutrality process, said it was clear that “dirty tricks” had been used, including identity theft, to generate millions of fake comments ascribed to real Americans.

“It is especially troubling,” he told Gizmodo, “that someone closely associated with the Trump campaign may have been the mastermind behind the underhanded, likely illegal, tactics waged against internet freedom.”

The New York attorney general’s office declined to comment citing an ongoing investigation.
https://gizmodo.com/fake-fcc-comments-l ... mpaign=top
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Feb 08, 2019 4:20 pm


southpaw

In a notice given to Roger Stone, the government disclosed that evidence relevant to his case was “derived from search warrants executed” in the investigation that led to the GRU indictment. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... Other.html
Image
Image

Stone has filed an objection to the designation of the GRU indictment as a related case, which is how we have this doc. His atty points out, reasonably, that he hasn’t been charged with hacking or conspiring w GRU, just lying and obstructing/witness tampering. Watch this space.
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/ ... 1830536192
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Feb 11, 2019 10:41 am

Roger Stone refuses to deny Mueller has a witness who heard him talking to Trump about WikiLeaks

Jeffrey Toobin’s big New Yorker profile of Trump ally Roger Stone contains a tantalizing nugget about information special counsel Robert Mueller may have about Stone’s conversations with President Donald Trump.

In his interview with Stone, Toobin asks the now-indicted Trump ally to comment on “persistent rumors that Mueller has a witness who says he heard Trump and Stone on a speakerphone discussing WikiLeaks.”

Stone simply replied by saying, “Prove it.”

Stone also told Toobin that “I have no memory of ever talking about WikiLeaks with [Trump].”

Trump and Stone were regularly in contact throughout the 2016 presidential election, when Stone was working to get information about hacked emails that were given to WikiLeaks and that were designed to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

And as Toobin notes, the Stone indictment “speaks of an unnamed person, possibly Trump himself, who ‘directed’ a senior campaign official to tell Stone to find out what was coming from WikiLeaks” during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In the indictment, Mueller alleges that Stone lied to Congressional investigators about his efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks for information about emails that were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. Additionally, Mueller claims that Stone sent threatening messages to talk show host Randy Credico that encouraged him to similarly lie to investigators.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/roger- ... wikileaks/
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:35 pm

Brad Heath




Mueller's office says in a new court filing that investigators executed search warrants on accounts used to "facilitate the transfer of stolen documents for release" and several included communications with Roger Stone.

Image

Mueller's office says the charges against Roger Stone "are part of the same alleged criminal event or transaction" as the ones it filed against Russian intelligence officers for hacking Democratic political organizations.

Image
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/10 ... 3952496640


Special counsel prosecutors say they have communications of Stone with WikiLeaks


Washington (CNN)Prosecutors said for the first time that they have evidence of Roger Stone communicating with WikiLeaks, according to a new court filing from special counsel prosecutors.

During its investigation of the Russian hack of the Democrats, "the government obtained and executed dozens of search warrants on various accounts used to facilitate the transfer of stolen documents for release, as well as to discuss the timing and promotion of their release," the prosecutors wrote Friday to a federal judge.

"Several of those search warrants were executed on accounts that contained Stone's communications with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1," which is WikiLeaks.

Previously, the prosecutors had only outlined how Stone attempted to get in touch with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange through intermediaries. Stone sought to learn about what the hackers had stolen from the Democratic Party and how he hoped for its release so it could help Donald Trump's campaign, prosecutors have said.

The new filing provided no further details on what was contained in the communications.

There is one known exchange of messages between WikiLeaks and Stone. In February 2018, the Atlantic reported the Stone exchanged direct messages via Twitter with the WikiLeaks account in which Stone was asked to stop associating himself with the site. Both denied they were in contact about the release of Clinton emails.
The prosecutors have not yet explained in full the extent to which Stone actually reached WikiLeaks or Assange, or levied public charges against them for their role in the distribution of the hacked data.

Friday's filing is the strongest detail yet provided by the prosecutors that Stone and WikiLeaks were in touch.

Prosecutors stated that in obtaining the accounts, they found communications between Stone and WikiLeaks, which is only described as Organization 1, as well as Guccifer 2.0 which is the alias used by Russian intelligence to disseminate the documents.

Stone and his legal team will have access to these search warrants as they review evidence in the case to prepare for his trial. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of witness tampering, obstruction of justice and lying.

Case will not be reassigned


Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Friday denied Stone's attempt to get a new judge in his case, by alleging that his charges are unrelated to a case about the Russian hack of the Democrats. Prosecutors say they are indeed related, partly because they both hinge on some of the same search warrants.

Gag order


Jackson also placed a gag order on Stone and attorneys involved in his criminal case, though Stone's ability to speak publicly isn't completely restricted.

Lawyers "for the parties and the witnesses must refrain from making statements to the media or in public settings that pose a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case," Jackson wrote.

They, their clients and even Stone are also not allowed to speak in and around the courthouse.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/politics ... index.html



southpaw

This is the filing I've been waiting for today. The SCO says evidence in Roger Stone's case was found in accounts that were searched for the GRU case, in which 11 Russian military officers were charged with a conspiracy to interfere in the election.

Image

In other words, following the evidence from the Russian side of the investigation led the Special Counsel's Office to Roger Stone. Consider the implications of that.


For another, it includes the first SCO confirmation of @NatashaBertrand's report that Stone communicated directly with Assange. It also firmly ties Stone to paragraph 44 of the Netyshko indictment, which quoted his DMs with Guccifer 2.0 but didn't name him.

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/ ... 6222486528






ROGER STONE AND THE DOZENS OF SEARCH WARRANTS ON ACCOUNTS USED TO FACILITATE THE TRANSFER AND PROMOTION OF STOLEN DEMOCRATIC EMAILS

February 15, 2019/7 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, Mueller Probe /by empty wheel

In response to Roger Stone’s bid to get a new judge, the government has submitted a filing explaining why his case is related to the GRU indictment. It explains that Stone’s alleged false statements pertained to an investigation into links between the Russians who stole Democratic emails, entities who dumped them, and US persons like Stone:

The defendant’s false statements did not arise in a vacuum: they were made in the course of an investigation into possible links between Russian individuals (including the Netyksho defendants), individuals associated with the dumping of materials (including Organization 1), and U.S. persons (including the defendant).


More interestingly, it makes clear that Stone’s communications “with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1” were found in some of the accounts used to transfer and promote the stolen emails.

In the course of investigating that activity, the government obtained and executed dozens of search warrants on various accounts used to facilitate the transfer of stolen documents for release, as well as to discuss the timing and promotion of their release. Several of those search warrants were executed on accounts that contained Stone’s communications with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1.


To be clear: We know that Stone had (innocuous) DMs with both Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks. So this passage is not necessarily saying anything new. But given that Stone’s indictment obscures precisely who his and Jerome Corsi’s go-between with WikiLeaks is, it suggests there may be more direct Stone communications of interest.

Stone will get a sealed description of what those warrants are and — eventually — get the warrants themselves in discovery.

The relevant search warrants, which are being produced to the defendant in discovery in this case, are discussed further in a sealed addendum to this filing.


Meanwhile, Amy Berman Jackson has issued a very limited gag in Stone’s case, prohibiting lawyers from material comments on the case, but gagging Stone only at the courthouse. That said, her gag includes lawyers for witnesses, which would seem to include Jerome Corsi lawyer Larry Klayman.

Counsel for the parties and the witnesses must refrain from making statements to the media or in public settings that pose a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case


ABJ does give Stone the following warnings to shut up, however.

This order should not be interpreted as modifying or superseding the condition of the defendant’s release that absolutely prohibits him from communicating with any witness in the case, either directly or indirectly. Nor does this order permit the defendant to intimidate or threaten any witness, or to engage or attempt to engage in any conduct in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1512.

Finally, while it is not up to the Court to advise the defendant as to whether a succession of public statements would be in his best interest at this time, it notes that one factor that will be considered in the evaluation of any future request for relief based on pretrial publicity will be the extent to which the publicity was engendered by the defendant himself.


So the biggest news here might be that Larry Klayman has to shut up.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/02/15/r ... ic-emails/
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Feb 18, 2019 4:14 pm

Roger Stone now directly attacking the federal judge presiding over his case and posting a pic of her head beside crosshairs


original photo of the judge came from a site called cosmicconvergence. org, an anti-Semitic, New World Order conspiracy group.

Image


No. You can't trigger recusal by being a douche to a judge.



B9D804B3-30C5-4780-8A7C-D3AEF98D9EF4.jpeg
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:34 am


The real reason the judge hasn’t thrown Roger Stone in jail yet

Just days after Roger Stone appeared to violate his gag order by going through surrogates to air his thoughts about the criminal case against him, he appeared to violate it again by using Instagram to attack a CNN reporter’s coverage of the case against him. Then on Wednesday, Stone definitely violated the gag order by texting a reporter about Michael Cohen’s testimony. So why isn’t Stone in jail yet? There’s a reason for this.

The simple answer is that Judge Amy Jackson Berman hasn’t yet seen fit to do so, as it’s entirely a judgment call on her part. Based on her response during Roger Stone’s most recent hearing, she clearly took seriously the threat that Stone made against her life. But his subsequent antics have all been about trying to violate the spirit of the gag order without violating the letter of it, and while she can still nail him for that, she doesn’t appear to think it’s necessary. But there’s more to it.

At any time, Special Counsel Robert Mueller could ask Judge Jackson to revoke Roger Stone’s bail. She might or might not do it, but she’d at least hold a hearing and consider it. The point is, Mueller hasn’t even asked. So why wouldn’t Mueller even try to get Stone thrown in jail? The main reason for doing so would be to use it as leverage to try to get Stone to cut a deal. But no one expects Stone to cut a deal – at least not yet.


After Paul Manafort was arrested, Robert Mueller didn’t initially try to get him thrown in jail. Manafort instead ended up under house arrest, and he was quickly caught trying to tamper with witnesses. This ultimately made it easier for Mueller to finish Manafort off entirely. It looks like Mueller is now using the same strategy of giving Roger Stone just enough freedom to get caught committing even more crimes, thus making it easier to take him down completely.

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/r ... dge/16336/
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:17 pm

Roger Stone is really doing his level best to get thrown in jail before his trial—here, surprising the judge who put a gag order on him with the fact of an imminent book release. Also, tough look for a defendant to spell “release” wrong.

Image


Judge Amy Berman Jackson just took Roger Stone’s head off

Earlier today, Palmer Report examined why Judge Amy Berman Jackson hasn’t yet revoked Roger Stone’s bail and thrown him in jail, even though he’s said a few different things that are at least slightly in violation of his gag order. Our conclusion: she was waiting for him to do something bigger before locking him up, so there would be no doubt that her decision was warranted. This evening, Jackson appears to have finally decided enough is enough.
Judge Jackson posted a new filing today expressing her exasperation over the fact that Roger Stone has a new book coming out any day now – which is apparently about the criminal case against him – and that she’s just now finding out about it. Jackson is reading Stone the riot act, pointing out that he could and should have brought up his upcoming book during his recent hearings involving his gag order

To be clear, Roger Stone writes books for a living. In fact all of his other antics are generally for the purpose of driving the sales of his books. So it’s possible that Stone would see his upcoming book as merely being par for the course. What he doesn’t appear to get is that nothing in his life is normal anymore, and that his usual antics put him in danger of losing everything.

Judge Jackson is demanding that Roger Stone explain his book stunt by this Monday, March 4th. The question is whether she’ll revoke Roger Stone’s bail on Monday, which would result in Stone either being thrown in jail or placed under house arrest. As we’ve explained, the decision is based solely on her personal judgment. But the end of Roger Stone seems to be coming rather soon now.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/j ... off/16367/
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:21 pm

Somebody’s going to be breaking rocks soon. :)


Josh Marshall


So the release of Roger Stone’s book attacking the DOJ and the Mueller probe isn’t “imminent”. A big chunk is already published... just a few examples here
Image
Image
Image


and this
Image
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Mar 04, 2019 6:52 pm

LOOOOOOOOOOL Judge is pissed at little Roger again

The government has notified Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Roger

C8CDA804-EB63-4867-9DAD-8B2D8DC50A9B.png


Special counsel Robert Mueller notifies judge that Trump friend Roger Stone posted Instagram image that could violate gag order

Dan ManganPublished an hour ago Updated Moments Ago
Roger Stone, a former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, leaves the Prettyman United States Courthouse after a hearing February 1, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Mark Wilson | Getty Images

Special counsel Robert Mueller on Monday notified a federal judge about an Instagram post by President Donald Trump’s friend Roger Stone that could be in violation of the judge’s strict gag order on Stone.

The filing by Mueller cited CNBC’s story on Sunday detailing the post by Stone, which contained an image of him under the words “Who framed Roger Stone.”

Mueller did not ask Judge Amy Berman to find the self-described “dirty trickster” Stone broke her gag order.

Stone, 66, is barred from criticizing Mueller’s team of prosecutors under the gag imposed Feb. 21 after the longtime Republican operative posted an Instagram image of Jackson’s face next to a rifle scope’s crosshair.

Stone told Jackson during a court hearing on that post called it an “egregious, stupid mistake,” and said “I am hurtfully sorry for my own stupidity.”

At the same Feb. 21 hearing, the judge warned him: “Today, I gave you a second chance. This is not baseball, you don’t get a third chance.”

If Stone, who is currently free on a $250,000 signature bond, is found by Jackson to have violated that order, she could have him jailed without bail pending his trial on charges of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing justice.

Stone on Sunday deleted the “Who framed Roger Stone” image from a series of other rotating images on his Instagram story shortly after CNBC sent an email to his lawyer asking about it.

The other images suggested that people donate to Stone’s legal defense fund, with one saying “I am committed to proving my innocence. But I need your help,” and another saying, “I’ve always had Trump’s back. Will you have mine?”

Image

“We note for the Court that according to public reporting, on March 3, 2019, the defendant’s Instagram account shared an image with the title ‘who framed Roger Stone.’ A copy of the image is submitted under seal as Exhibit C. 1,” Mueller said in the court filing in federal court in Washington, D.C.

CNBC’s story on the image is referenced in a footnote in that filing.

Stone’s posted the “Framed” Instagram image two days after Jackson ordered his defense lawyers to explain why they did not tell her about the planned publication of a book by Stone that could violate her gag order. The book is entitled “The Myth of Russian Collusion: The Inside Story of How Trump Really Won.”

Jackson’s gag order prohibits Stone from “making statements to the media or in public settings about the Special Counsel’s investigation or this case or any of the participants in the investigation or the case.”

The gag covers “posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other form of social media,” as well as other forms of communication.

Mueller’s spokesman, who declined to comment on Stone’s post on Sunday, did not immediately return a request for comment. Stone’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier Monday, Stone’s attorneys told Jackson in a filing that they belived his new book, which has an updated introduction discussing his case, should be allowed to be published because it was written and edited before the judge issued her gag order.

His attorneys write that Stone’s publication of the book, “should not be viewed as contravening the Court’s prohibitions because these prohibitions were not extant and could not have been known prior to February 21, 2019.”

But Mueller’s filing afterward noted that, “A preview of the defendant’s book, including the updated Introduction referenced in the defendant’s Motion to Clarify, is currently publicly available on Amazon.com and Google Books.”

Stone was arrested in January. He has pleaded not guilty in the case.

Mueller claims Congress about his alleged effort to get the document collection group WikiLeaks to release emails hacked by Russian agents from Democrats, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Stone is alleged to have been in contact with top-ranking Trump campaign officials about efforts to leak damaging information about Clinton.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/04/robert- ... image.html
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:08 pm

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act


INFORMATION IN AMENDED DNC LAWSUIT REVEALS THAT ROGER STONE IS AT SIGNIFICANTLY GREATER RISK FOR CFAA INDICTMENT

December 9, 2018/185 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel
Back in November, I wrote a post considering whether Roger Stone could be charged in a CFAA conspiracy. I noted that the last hack noted in the GRU indictment may have post-dated communications Stone had with Guccifer 2.0, in which Stone scoffed at the analytical information released as part of the DCCC hack. I pointed to this passage from the GRU indictment, showing that the GRU hack of the DNC analytics hosted on an AWS server may have post-dated those conversations between Guccifer 2.0 and Stone.

I’m writing a response to the Wikileaks defense against the DNC lawsuit for its involvements in the 2016 election attack, and so have only now gotten around to reading the amended complaint against Stone and others that the DNC filed in the wake of the GRU indictment. And it reveals that the AWS hack was far worse than described in the GRU indictment — and it continued well after that Stone conversation with Guccifer 2.0.

None of this long passage is footnoted in the complaint. It has to be based on the DNC’s own knowledge of the AWS hack.

On September 20, 2016, CrowdStrike’s monitoring service discovered that unauthorized users—later discovered to be GRU officers—had accessed the DNC’s cloud-computing service. The cloud-computing service housed test applications related to the DNC’s analytics. The DNC’s analytics are its most important, valuable, and highly confidential tools. While the DNC did not detect unauthorized access to its voter file, access to these test applications could have provided the GRU with the ability to see how the DNC was evaluating and processing data critical to its principal goal of winning elections. Forensic analysis showed that the unauthorized users had stolen the contents of these virtual servers by making exact duplicates (“snapshots”) of them and moving those snapshots to other accounts they owned on the same service. The GRU stole multiple snapshots of these virtual servers between September 5, 2016 and September 22, 2016. The U.S. government later concluded that this cyberattack had been executed by the GRU as part of its broader campaign to damage to the Democratic party.

In 2016, the DNC used Amazon Web Services (“AWS”), an Amazon-owned company that provides cloud computing space for businesses, as its “data warehouse” for storing and analyzing almost all of its data.

To store and analyze the data, the DNC used a software program called Vertica, which was run on the AWS servers. Vertica is a Hewlett Packard program, which the DNC licensed. The data stored on Vertica included voter contact information, such as the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of voters, and notes from the DNC’s prior contacts with these voters. The DNC also stored “digital information” on AWS servers. “Digital information” included data about the DNC’s online engagement, such as DNC email lists, the number of times internet users click on DNC advertisements (or “click rates”), and the number of times internet users click on links embedded in DNC emails (or “engagement rates”). The DNC also used AWS to store volunteer information—such as the list of people who have signed up for DNC-sponsored events and the number of people who attended those events.

Vertica was used to both store DNC data and organize the data so that DNC computer engineers could access it. To use the Vertica data, DNC employees could not simply type a plain-English question into the database. Instead, DNC engineers needed to write lines of computer code that instructed Vertica to search for and display a data set. The computer engineers’ coded requests for data are called “queries.”

When the DNC wanted to access and use the data it collected, the DNC described the information it wanted to retrieve, and DNC computer engineers designed and coded the appropriate “queries” to produce that data. These queries are secret, sensitive work product developed by the DNC for the purpose of retrieving specific cross-sections of information in order to develop political, financial, and voter engagement strategies and services. Many of these queries are used or intended for use in interstate commerce. The DNC derives value from these queries by virtue of their secrecy: if made public, these queries would reveal critical insights into the DNC’s political, financial, and voter engagement strategies. DNC computer engineers could save Vertica queries that they run repeatedly. In 2016, some of the DNC’s most frequently used Vertica queries—which revealed fundamental elements of the DNC’s political and financial strategies— were stored on the AWS servers.

When the DNC wanted to analyze its data to look for helpful patterns or trends, the DNC used another piece of software called Tableau. Tableau is commercial software not developed by DNC engineers. Instead, the DNC purchased a license for the Tableau software, and ran the software against Vertica.

Using Tableau, the DNC was able to develop graphs, maps, and other visual reports based on the data stored on Vertica. When the DNC wanted to visualize the data it collected, the DNC described the information it wanted to examine, and DNC computer engineers designed and coded the appropriate “Tableau queries” to produce that data in the form requested. These Tableau queries are secret, sensitive work product developed by the DNC for the purpose of transforming its raw data into useful visualizations. The DNC derives value from these queries by virtue of their secrecy: if made public, these queries would reveal critical insights into the DNC’s political, financial, and voter engagement strategies and services. Many of these queries are used or intended for use in interstate commerce.

DNC computer engineers could also save Tableau queries that they ran repeatedly. In 2016, some of the DNC’s most frequently used Tableau queries—which revealed fundamental elements of the DNC’s political and financial strategies—were stored on the AWS servers.

The DNC’s Vertica queries and Tableau Queries that allow DNC staff to analyze their data and measure their progress toward their strategic goals—collectively, the DNC’s “analytics,”—are its most important, valuable, and highly confidential tools. Because these tools were so essential, the DNC would often test them before they were used broadly.

The tests were conducted using “testing clusters”—designated portions of the AWS servers where the DNC tests new pieces of software, including new Tableau and Vertica Queries. To test a new query, a DNC engineer could use the query on a “synthetic” data set—mock-up data generated for the purpose of testing new software—or a small set of real data. For example, the DNC might test a Tableau query by applying the software to a set of information from a specific state or in a specific age range. Thus, the testing clusters housed sensitive, proprietary pieces of software under development. As described above, the DNC derives significant value from its proprietary software by virtue of its secrecy: if made public, it would reveal critical insights into the DNC’s political, financial, and voter engagement strategies and services, many of which are used or intended for use in interstate commerce.

The DNC protected all of the data and code in its AWS servers by, among other things, restricting access to authorized users. To gain access to the AWS servers themselves, an authorized user had to take multiple steps. First, the authorized user would have to log onto a Virtual Private Network (VPN) using a unique username and password. Second, once the user entered a valid and password, the system would send a unique six-digit code (PIN) to the authorized user’s phone, and the user would have 30 seconds to type it into the computer system. This two-step process is commonly known as “two-factor authentication.”

Authorized users would also employ a two-factor authentication system to access Tableau visualizations. First, they would log into a Google account with a unique username and password, and then they would enter a pin sent to their cell phones.

Finally, the DNC’s AWS servers were protected with firewalls and cybersecurity best practices, including: (a) limiting the IP addresses and ports with which users could access servers; (b) auditing user account activities; and (c) monitoring authentication and access attempts.

On September 20, 2016, CrowdStrike’s monitoring service discovered that unauthorized users had breached DNC AWS servers that contained testing clusters. Further forensic analysis showed that the unauthorized users had stolen the contents of these DNC AWS servers by taking snapshots of the virtual servers, and had moved those replicas to other AWS accounts they controlled. The GRU stole multiple snapshots of these servers between September 5, 2016 and September 22, 2016. The U.S. later concluded that this cyberattack had been executed by the GRU as part of its broader campaign to damage to the Democratic party. The GRU could have derived significant economic value from the theft of the DNC’s data by, among other possibilities, selling the data to the highest bidder.

The software would also be usable as executable code by DNC opponents, who could attempt to re-create DNC data visualizations or derive DNC strategy decisions by analyzing the tools the DNC uses to analyze its data. [my emphasis]


In other words, at least one of those snapshots was stolen after Stone suggested he would like better analytics data than what GRU had publicly released via HelloFL. So he can no longer say that his communications with Guccifer 2.0 preceded all the hacking. Which the nifty timeline Stone’s attorney submitted in conjunction with his motion to dismiss doesn’t account for at all.

Image

Given Stone’s history of non-denial denials for crimes he commits, I’d say this stunted timeline doesn’t help him much.

Here’s Stone’s motion to dismiss. As with his nifty timeline, he does not address — at all — the communications between him and Guccifer 2.0 regarding analytics. It does, however, include this tagline.

He is the First Amendment running, not walking; but his conduct cannot be adjudged a civil wrong.


Past history says Stone’s rat-fuckery tends to be easily found in his swiss cheese denials, and I’d say this is one example.

Note that, a week after DNC submitted its amended complaint on October 4, WikiLeaks released a proprietary AWS document showing the locations of all AWS’s servers around the world — something that is not all that newsworthy, but something that would be incredibly valuable for those trying to compromise AWS. That was one of its only releases since the crackdown on Assange has intensified.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/12/09/i ... ndictment/
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Mar 12, 2019 12:41 am

southpaw


Roger Stone’s filing attempting to untangle himself from the book rerelease imbroglio


The exhibits are a quite a window into conservative book publishing, if you’re into that sort of thing. Apparently the publisher decided to print 100,000 copies of Stone’s Trump 2016 book initially, and... it did not go well.


The candidates for Stone’s book cover. Barnes & Noble insisted on the top left version, according to the publisher. Stone wanted the black & white one w/ Trump’s picture.

Image

If ABJ keys in on any email, I bet it’s this one.

“These are weird times”

Image

Remember the sworn testimony Stone—who wrote the highlighted email above—gave to the court six days later:

ABJ: So an order that you couldn’t speak about this case wouldn’t affect your ability to make a living?

STONE: That is correct. https://assets.documentcloud.org/docume ... SCRIPT.pdf
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/ ... 0330015744




A planned 'momentary lapse in judgment'...
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Mar 12, 2019 5:43 pm

ROGER STONE’S SEEMINGLY CREDIBLE EXCUSE STARTS FALLING APART WELL BEFORE BRUCE ROGOW ASKS FOR A NOTE FROM HIS DOCTOR

March 12, 2019/0 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, emptywheel, Mueller Probe /by emptywheel
On February 21, Roger Stone and his attorneys walked into Amy Berman Jackson’s court room with the swagger of apparent certainty they were going to convince her not to impose a gag on the rat-fucker. As I’ve laid out, that swagger was misplaced. ABJ got both Stone and his lead attorney, Bruce Rogow, to lay out the case for a gag themselves, on public safety grounds.

On the way back to Florida after that hearing, the swaggering rat-fucker and his lawyers now claim, Roger Stone reminded his lawyer, Grant Smith (who had negotiated his book contracts, edited the new introduction [see page 49], and even arranged some of the right wing media publicity for it, post-indictment), that he had a second edition of a book coming out — for which he had just received his advance copies three days earlier — that might violate the expanded gag she had just imposed. Stone then forwarded the email attaching the new introduction to Smith, who forwarded it on to Bruce Rogow, who reacted with alarm. Once Stone told his lawyers, they scrambled to respond, they claim. Ultimately they “clarified” that the book was coming out to ABJ on March 1, a week later.

That’s the story that Stone’s lawyers told in a response to an angry order about all this from ABJ, which they submitted last night. It seems credible, if you don’t look too closely at the details or the arrogant close.

There was/is no intention to hide anything. The new introduction, post February 21, 2019, presented a question we tried, obviously clumsily, to address. Having been scolded, we seek only to defend Mr. Stone and move ahead without further ado.1

1 Bruce Rogow may not be able to attend the March 14, 2019 status conference because he is under a physician’s care for a temporary disorder impeding his ability to travel.


There are, however, a few problems with the story.

Multiple claims they make in their new filing are doubtful, some rely on legal gimmicks, and at least some are outright false. I’ll deal with them one by one, ending with the first claim (about publicity last).

ROGER STONE AND GRANT SMITH HAD NO CONFUSION THAT HIS BOOK WAS BEING RELEASED ON MARCH 1
Stone claims when he first submitted his “clarification” on March 1, there was confusion about when the book would be published.

That the New Introduction “had been sent to a publisher in January and was scheduled for release in February” (Order, p. 3, n. 2), is now certain. See Composite Exhibit B. There was confusion. We apologize for the confusing representation about publication.


This refers to a discrepancy about what Stone variously claimed with regards to the release date of his book. In his lawyers’ initial “motion to clarify,” which remains under seal, they appear to have referred to its “imminent general release.” Stone’s March 4 motion states,

The book, with the [new introduction], was published by the Publisher on February 19, 2019. Copies were distributed by the Publisher to hundreds of retailers nationwide in late January 2019.

[snip]

the imminent general relase [sic] of the book’s contents, including the [new introduction], Defendant respectfully requests that the publication of this book (together with the ) should not be viewed as contravening the Court’s prohibitions because these prohibitions were not extant and could not have been known prior to February 21, 2019.


The government pointed out on March 4 that the book was available as an ebook, but was silent about any existing paperback edition.

So Stone claims the paperwork he submitted proved that the book was scheduled for release in February. In fact, they appear to be conflating the online and hard copy release.

In fact, Stone’s publisher Tony Lyons told him in January the release date was March 5 (PDF 65).

Image

And while an editor told Stone that the paperbacks were being printed “soon” on January 24 (remarkably, the very day he was indicted, though he should not have known about the sealed indictment at that point), Stone didn’t actually tell him where to send his own review copies until February 15, after his attorneys had already submitted the first filing regarding a gag. (PDF 84)

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In his response that same day (PDF 96), Mike Campbell talked about forthcoming plans for media appearances relating to the book. In response, Stone specifically mentioned that ABJ might gag him “any day now” (she issued the first gag sometime that day, just days before Stone threatened her).

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According to the Instagram posts submitted with the filing, as recently as February 18 — notably, the day Stone now claims the book was “published” — Stone understood the books would be “In stores March 1!” (PDF 111)

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And on February 21, immediately after Stone got gagged, Grant Smith (who negotiated the deal, edited the new material, and helped with publicity) reflected the understanding that the book would come out on March 1. (PDF 9)

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AT LEAST ONE OF STONE’S LAWYERS DID NOT BELIEVE PUBLICITY WOULD WANE

Stone’s lawyers claim they believed — and still believe — what they submitted to ABJ on February 8, that publicity in the case would wane after his initial arrest on January 25.

But, the February 8 representation that “‘[t]hat first wave of publicity surrounding the indictment . . . will subside. To be sure, the interest in this case will continue, but nothing compels the conclusion that the Court’s present expressed confidence in seeking an unbiased jury will, in months hence, be compromised by the press or Mr. Stone as we move forward.’” (Order at 3, n. 2, quoting February 8 submission), is still true. The Court views the New Introduction as “entirely inconsistent with the assurances,” but those “assurances” were not made in an effort to conceal anything. They reflected a belief in both waning publicity and the ability of the Court to seat a jury. That opinion still holds.


But in an email chain from January 28 setting up a publicity appearance for the book on Hannity, Smith received an email from Kristin Davis stating she was “looking forward to making another New York Times Bestseller.” (PDF 100)

Image

THE ENTIRETY OF PARAGRAPH 3 SEEMS ONLY TO RELATE TO BRUCE ROGOW

Then, there’s this paragraph, which serves to deny they’re trying to pull a fast one over on ABJ (I’ve numbered the sentences to make the following discussion more clear):

[1] That the lawyers who submitted the Notice of Apology, and who condemned the posting which prompted it, “did not seek an exception for a recently revised introduction to a book that was in the hands of retailers as he spoke” (Opinion at 3-4) is true. [2] But any suggestion that not doing so was intended to mislead, is not true. [3] Even if it had crossed counsel’s mind to raise the new introduction (and it did not), it seems a bit awkward to have sought to introduce the New Introduction at that very moment during argument. [4] As the 6:33 p.m. February 21, 2019 email exchange reflects, reading for the first time the New Introduction, while waiting for a plane back to Fort Lauderdale, brought the issue home and led to the Motion to Clarify.


Read quickly, you might assume the paragraph has just one subject: “the lawyers,” plural, meaning Stone’s entire legal team.

Not so.

First, note that just two of his attorneys signed the Notice of Apology referenced in sentence 1: Peter Farkas (through whom all the rest have their pro hac vice in DC), and Bruce Rogow (that’s true of the February 8 gag filing as well).

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That’s important, because (as noted) Smith was not only involved in every step of this publication process, but helped Stone set up publicity for the book after he had been indicted. I’m guessing that he doesn’t feel any regret about Stone’s incitement.

Sentence 2 of paragraph 3 has no human subject — it refers to the action the counsels in the previous sentence took, or not (in this case, not disclosing the publication of Stone’s book).

The next human subject, in sentence 3, “counsel,” is referred to in the singular, perhaps speaking exclusively for the single lawyer who spoke on Stone’s behalf at the gag hearing, Rogow.

Sentence 4 may appear to use a gerund as its subject (as the second sentence does), reading for the first time. But in fact, that gerund actually modifies the unstated subject. That subject, too, is singular, given that the email referenced is not Smith’s (which was sent at 5:58PM), but Rogow’s (sent at 6:33PM).

Image

The claims made in this paragraph may apply only to Rogow, and they definitely do not apply to Smith, about whom all the claims would probably be false, and the claim he had only read the new introduction for the first time on February 21 (which, again, he edited on January 15) would absolutely be false.

STONE MAY NOT HAVE TURNED OVER ALL RELEVANT COMMUNICATION

Stone’s lawyer’s claim that all records regarding publication date appear in Exhibit B.

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Perhaps they do. But that exhibit shows Stone forwarding emails he believed to be relevant to Smith. All the ones he sent on March 7 and 8 are numbered, like the first of those emails. (PDF 19)

Image

Only, assuming Stone numbered consecutively, around 8 of the emails he seems to have found relevant are missing: 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, and 16.

Stone sent some more on March 11 that weren’t numbered, so it’s unclear if there were still more emails that didn’t make this exhibit.

STONE’S LAWYERS ARE OBFUSCATING ABOUT ONLINE AVAILABILITY

Stone claims that his publisher answered definitively.

DEFENDANT MUST INFORM THE COURT OF THE EXACT DATE THE BOOK WAS FIRST MADE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE ONLINE, AND THE INTRODUCTION WAS MADE AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING, AT AMAZON.COM AND GOOGLE BOOKS OR ANY OTHER ONLINE VENDOR.

Response:

As provided by the Publisher, the exact date the book was first made available for purchase online, and the Introduction was made available for viewing to Amazon.com and Google books or any other online vendor was on January 18, 2019. They could choose to make them publicly available any time after they received them.

Both times the publisher answers the question, however, the answer is not that clear. The first time Tony Lyons answers the question (knowing he has to answer correctly to keep Stone out of jail), he says “both” were live before the gag order, which could refer to both e-book versions, Amazon and Google, or both kinds of availability.

Image

Lyons answers the question again the next day, again using an unspecified February 19 in spite of being asked two questions.

Image

As proof that Tara Campion did not take this date to refer to hard copies, she asked him a follow-up the next day.

STONE PROFESSES TO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE POSTED IN HIS OWN INSTAGRAM

In spite of all the details I’ve posted above showing that Stone believed, as late as February 18, that the book would be in stores on March 1, he now claims to know none of that.

DEFENDANT MUST INFORM THE COURT WHETHER AND WHEN HE BECAME AWARE OF: THE FACT THAT THE NEW EDITION OF THE BOOK HAD BEEN PRINTED BY THE PUBLISHER; THE FACT THAT COPIES OF THE BOOK HAD BEEN SHIPPED FROM THE PRINTER; THE FACT THAT COPIES WERE AVAILABLE AT BOOKSTORES; THE FACT THAT RETAIL BOOKSTORES WERE SELLING THE BOOK; AND THE FACT THAT THE BOOK WAS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE OR VIEWING ONLINE.

Response:

1) Mr. Stone became aware of the fact that the New Edition of the book had been printed in early February, exact date unknown, when an acquaintance of Mr. Stone reached out to him to say he had purchased and had in-hand a copy of the book.

2) Mr. Stone knew books had been shipped from the printer as late as February 18, when Mr. Stone received two boxes of approximately 30 books each at his home delivered to him by the publisher which he began giving to friends and family. See also, Composite Exhibit B.

3) Mr. Stone does not have any recollection of when he specifically knew they were available at bookstores.

4) Mr. Stone does not have any recollection of when he specifically knew they were being sold at retail bookstores.

5) Mr. Stone does not recall when he learned that the book was available for purchase or viewing online.


STONE CLAIMS HE MADE NO PUBLIC STATEMENT ABOUT THE BOOK EVEN THOUGH HE BOOKED A HANNITY APPEARANCE TO TALK ABOUT IT

Stone says he don’t remember pitching the book, ever.

To the best of Mr. Stone’s knowledge or records, he made no public statements regarding the publication of the book from January 15th to the present.


As noted above, Roger Stone booked an appearance on Hannity on January 28 specifically to pitch the book (Smith appears to have spoken to folks there about it). I don’t know whether the book was actually referenced, but he certainly planned on doing so.

GRANT SMITH, WHO EDITED THE INTRODUCTION, NEEDED NO REMINDER IT EXISTED

Stone’s filing claims he needed to “remind” counsel of the existence of the new introduction that violated the gag.

Immediately following the February 21 hearing, Mr. Stone reminded counsel about the existence of the New Introduction which covered topics now subject to restriction and that it could be construed as being written after the date for the February 21 Order because the various platform and location releases were not immediately known to him, although he had knowledge they had been printed and that there had been at least one commercial sale. Mr. Stone instructed Mr. Smith to send the new introduction to the others on his team for review.


As I keep noting, on January 15, Smith shared his own edits with the publisher — and Stone approved both the ones the publisher made and those Smith made (meaning he knows Smith did make edits).

Image

STONE WAS INCLUDED IN DIRECT COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE PUBLISHERS BETWEEN FEBRUARY 21 AND MARCH 1, AND CONTINUED TO CONTACT THEM DIRECTLY AFTER THAT

Stone’s lawyers claim he did not have “direct communications” with his publisher between the imposition of the gag and the first “clarification” to ABJ.

Mr. Stone did not have any direct communications with the publisher or any retailer between February 21 and March 1, all communications were indirect through counsel. To be completely transparent, Mr. Stone has authorized counsel to provide these communications to the Court.

Only here he was, being included in the conversations with the publishers on February 26. (PDF 121)

Image

And while Stone’s lawyers don’t make any representations on this topic, it’s clear that Stone continued to be in direct contact with the publishers after that. Indeed, it appears the two-step process of forwarding relevant emails to Smith actually amounted to first sending them to Mike Campbell at the publishers, evidence to which got left in on this email and at least one other one. (PDF 96)

Image

This is true, in spite of his lawyers’ claims that the publisher was keeping proprietary information from him.

As is reflected in this email exchange, Mr. Stone no longer had a “joint venture” with the publisher and the publisher viewed the information Mr. Stone was requesting to be proprietary as Mr. Stone neither participated in setting the schedule or any printing or distribution decisions.


FOR SOME REASON, STONE’S LAWYERS DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT BRUCE ROGOW’S COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE PUBLISHER

Stone’s lawyers end this filing with claims about how serious they were because they took a week to present misleading data to ABJ.

On the morning of February 22, Mr. Smith sent an email to the publisher requesting, in light of the Court’s Order, a detailed explanation of where the books stood in the release/publishing process.

On February 26th, in preparation for the March 1 filing by Defendant, Mr. Smith requested additional information from the publisher to be able to accurately represent the status of the book to the Court. As is reflected in this email exchange, Mr. Stone no longer had a “jointventure” with the publisher and the publisher viewed the information Mr. Stone was requesting to be proprietary as Mr. Stone neither participated in setting the schedule or any printing or distribution decisions. The publisher ultimately provided the information requested in preparation for the Defendant’s filing.

The Defendant also asks the Court to take notice of the immediacy with which this was addressed by Mr. Stone and that the serious tone in the emails reflects the seriousness with which Mr. Stone took the Court’s February 21 order.


Curiously, they only mention the first two email threads, involving Grant Smith. After having gotten answers, sort of, to the questions they were seeking, Smith then emailed Tony Lyons and said that Lyon had to speak to Rogow immediately. He cc’s Tara Campion, another lawyer in Rogow’s office, who happens not to be a lawyer of record in Stone’s case (and therefore she’s outside of ABJ’s authority). (PDF 127)

Image

Lyons says he’s too busy to talk but can respond to emailed questions (they’ve been emailing questions for 5 days at this point). Campion gets the same answers Smith already got, equally ambiguous about the hard copy print date as the earlier round. She asks Lyons when the books were sent out and he says, “I’ll put a call in to our sales director but usually 2-3 weeks before pub date.”

Remember: Everyone believed the “pub date” was March 1, which would put distribution of the books around February 18, which is when Stone himself received his copies.

When Campion follows up again about whether he has spoken with the sales director, he doesn’t say he has! but claims that he now knows they were sent in late January. (PDF 125)

Image

Once again, on January 24, Michael Campbell told Stone the books were “printing soon.” He did not give Campbell the address to receive the books until February 15, in a conversation specifically referencing the expected gag order. And while Campbell’s response reflects review copies having been sent out by February 15, that’s different than actual retail copies. (PDF 96-97 shows this, which happens to be one of the ones Stone definitely shared directly with the publisher.)

Which means this exchange — which happened after Smith told Lyons he needed to speak to Rogow — probably is bullshit, but it provided dates that weren’t utterly damning for ABJ.

The thing is, they’re probably not true, and ABJ may well delve into all this on Thursday.

Which is why I find it so interesting that Rogow plans to have a note from his doctor excusing him from attendance.

There was/is no intention to hide anything. The new introduction, post February 21, 2019, presented a question we tried, obviously clumsily, to address. Having been scolded, we seek only to defend Mr. Stone and move ahead without further ado.1

1 Bruce Rogow may not be able to attend the March 14, 2019 status conference because he is under a physician’s care for a temporary disorder impeding his ability to travel.


I have no idea whether this will result in Stone being jailed. As I noted, at first glance it looks pretty convincing Once you look closer, it’s pretty clear the lawyers — Grant Smith in particular — sign onto claims that cannot be true. And that’s before you look at the 8 emails Stone thought were relevant but don’t appear in this filing, some of which the FBI probably seized along with everything else on January 25.

No wonder Rogow doesn’t want to be the one on the stand on Thursday.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/03/12/r ... is-doctor/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Roger Stone

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Mar 14, 2019 10:23 am

Zoe Tillman
Hello (again) from the federal courthouse in DC, where Roger Stone is due at 10am for a status hearing. The judge is expected to address Stone's newly released book, which talks about Mueller (the judge is not happy about it, see: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zo ... er-crooked …)


Roger Stone has arrived at the courthouse with his lawyers, he's waiting in the security line


Stone is getting to jump the (very long) security line. He's wearing a light gray double-breasted suit, a light blue shirt, and a navy or dark purple tie and pocket square


We've concluded Stone's tie is navy. He's also got a silver chain attached to his lapel that goes into his upper pocket - perhaps a pocket watch? We (the assembled reporters) couldn't tell


Twist: Sam Nunberg just came into the courthouse. Asked if he was going to observe Roger Stone's hearing, he said yes: "I'm just here for the circus"


And Paul Kamenar, who has represented former Stone associate Andrew Miller (who unsuccessfully challenged a grand jury subpoena, see: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zo ... uit-ruling …), is also here



Now: Judge Amy Berman Jackson has entered the courtroom for Roger Stone's status conference


Jackson says she's still considering the issue of Stone's book: "I don’t intend to dwell on it this morning." So she's not going to issue a ruling on whether Stone is in compliance, or not, with the gag order today

However, she said she was not impressed with the argument from Stone's lawyers that they didn't bring up the book issue sooner because it would have been "awkward": "The last thing you should worry about is whether telling the court would be an uncomfortable experience."


Jackson: "There’s no exception for awkward."


Jackson, re: Stone's book coming out: "The lawyers apparently did not know. Given the fact that some were specifically hired to deal with the First Amendment issues, and that we’re having a hearing about his ability to publish, I suppose they probably should have inquired."


Jeannie Rhee says they think the exhibits Stone's lawyers gave the judge re: comms with the publisher about dates of publication and distribution conflict with some of Stone's representations about what he knew. Jackson says she hasn't had time yet to study the exhibits in detail

NEW: We have a trial date for Roger Stone: Nov. 5, 2019

Briefing schedule:
- Stone's motion to dismiss are due April 12 (govt opposition due May 3, reply due May 17)
- Stone's motion to suppress evidence are due May 10 (govt opposition due May 31, reply due June 14)
https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1 ... 2022476800



gonna have to be a good boy for 8 months Roger :)
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
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