Roger Stone trial - Day 2

InfoWars conspiracy theorist and Roger Stone ally Alex Jones stepped up his attacks on the jury at Stone’s trial on Tuesday, broadcasting the name and face of a woman he claimed was a juror at the trial and calling her a “minion” of anti-Trump forces.

“We’ve got her name, and we’re going to release it,” Jones said on his InfoWars broadcast, before revealing a woman’s name and putting her face on the screen behind him.

  Daily Beast

Surely there's a law that covers that?

Jones’ attacks on the jury were based on reporting that the first potential juror in the case was a former Obama administration employee in the Office of Management and Budget whose husband works for the Department of Justice. But in his rush to attack the potential juror as a deep-state plant, Jones appears to have gotten the wrong person.

During his broadcast, Jones didn’t show a picture of the actual potential juror, who, despite his claims, didn’t make it onto the jury anyway. Instead, he showed a picture of another former OMB staffer who appears to be totally unrelated to the Stone trial.

Can't even endanger the correct person.

This wasn’t Jones’ first attack on the jury—or his first that implied a threat to launch his legions of harassing fans at any jurors who find Stone guilty on witness tampering and obstruction charges. On Monday, he tried to convince political operative and close Stone associate Jacob Engels to name the juror, reading a list of names of former Obama administration officials and attempting to have Engels confirm which one was on the jury.

[...]

Jones is facing a number of legal issues of his own, including lawsuits filed by the families of Sandy Hook massacre victims who say Jones’ baseless claims that the shooting was faked provoked waves of harassment and death threats against them.

Sounds like we need a class action suit against Alex Jones to shut him down.

Back to the trial. It would seem Roger Stone is getting his big show. He should be careful. Trump will turn against him if he gets more attention than Trump.

The texts and emails came cascading out on Thursday. A visceral insult, a chilling threat, a garbled reference to one of the most famous mafia movies of all time. And expletives, so many expletives.

[...]

[J]urors heard all the juicy details from a variety of crude communications between Stone and the liberal talk show host Randy Credico — the witness Stone is charged with threatening and trying to silence.

Jurors even heard from Credico himself, a comic and impressionist who took the stand for the prosecution and had many in the jury box chortling with his wisecracks and a slew of vintage TV and film references. His testimony also triggered repeated interventions by the prosecution and the federal judge to stop with the digressions and keep his responses from devolving into a stand-up act.

Prosecutors had called Credico to the witness stand to explain how Stone repeatedly used a reference to a “Godfather” film in urging him to clam up in response to inquiries from congressional investigators.

[...]

“We know you’re a comedian, but this is serious business,” [Judge Amy Berman Jackson] declared.

“I know it is. I’m sorry,” Credico said sheepishly.

Jackson’s warning came just moments after jurors saw an email listing all the voices Credico specialized in — from politicians Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to Hollywood greats Al Pacino and Rodney Dangerfield.

“Would you like to hear some? Not even Bernie Sanders?” he quipped, quickly adding: “I will not do any voices, I promise.”

[...]

Despite the laughter from jurors and courtroom spectators, the factual testimony the prosecution elicited from Credico damaged Stone by undercutting his claims to congressional investigators. Stone told lawmakers under oath that Credico was the only person he dealt with as he sought to figure out when the pro-transparency organization WikiLeaks planned to release stolen emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

But Credico testified that as investigators bore down, he repeatedly reminded Stone that he had bragged about having a “back channel” to the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange long before ever contacting Credico about the issue.

[...]

Credico’s rollicking testimony followed a much more buttoned-down presentation from a former FBI agent who adopted a clinical tone as she read into the record a series of vulgar threats and insults Stone unleashed at his acquaintance as the federal investigations heated up.

[...]

“When I wipe my ass what’s on the toilet paper is worth more than you are. You’re an alcoholic drug addicted out of work piece of shit,” Stone wrote Credico in one message from early April 2018.

In another exchange, Credico warned Stone that he could be prosecuted for perjury for giving incorrect testimony to lawmakers. Stone replied with several threats directed at Credico and his therapy dog, Bianca.

“I’m going to take that dog away from you. Not a fucking thing you can do about it either because you are a weak piece of shit,” he wrote in one. And in another, Stone said, “Let’s get it on. Prepare to die cocksucker.”

[...]

Rather than appear before the House panel [in November 2017], Stone urged Credico to avoid testifying and pressed him to assert his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

“This whole thing will be worthless unless you find a place to do your Frank Cannon July 10 imitation ‘sure sure Roger Stone this Roger Stone that,’” Stone wrote to Credico. About 17 seconds later, Stone texted again: “Frank Pantsgele.”

[The agent who handled the Stone file, Michelle] Taylor, who recently left the FBI, explained to jurors that “Frank Cannon July 10” and “Frank Pantsgele” were intended as references to the “Godfather II” character Frank Pentangeli, who suffers a sudden bout of amnesia before Congress when they press him about the Corleone family’s mob activity.

[...]

The current president was also featured again on Thursday, one day after prosecutors revealed that Trump and Stone spoke on several occasions as the longtime conservative activist worked diligently to gain information about the stolen Democratic emails and prod WikiLeaks to release them.

Government lawyers showed jurors a chart detailing how Stone was regularly in touch with the presidential candidate and his top 2016 campaign aides at the same time the WikiLeaks document dumps rocked Clinton’s White House bid.

[...]

“You opened yourself up to six counts of perjury,” Credico wrote, more than a year before Stone was indicted on seven felony charges, including five for making false statements to Congress. “You should go back and amend your testimony and tell the truth….I’m sure you still have time.”

[...]

Clips of Stone around that time were being played nonstop on cable TV, where the political operative boasted to a South Florida GOP group that he’d been communicating directly with Assange. “I was trying to one-up him,” Credico explained.

In reality, Credico said, he was anything but an Assange insider. It’s why he didn’t press for specifics about upcoming damaging email dumps to Clinton when Assange actually appeared on his radio show that summer. And it’s why he had little luck getting anywhere close to Assange when he visited the Ecuadorian Embassy in London later in the fall to drop off a letter offering him a regular spot on his network.

“It was like the Thing from ‘Addams Family,’” Credico said in describing what happened when he knocked on the door of the building where Assange had been holed up since 2012. “A hand came out. They grabbed the letter, but I did not get inside the door.”

Jurors cracked up at the TV reference, and they kept on smiling when Jackson cut the day short before 5 p.m., with Credico scheduled to come back Friday morning for more direct testimony and cross-examination from Stone’s defense team.

As the judge prepared to dismiss them, she made an addendum to her usual warning about not discussing the case with anyone, to do research or consuming any media reports about the trial. Given all they’d just heard, Jackson added to her spiel that it also meant “not even downloading ‘The Godfather’ on Netflix.”

  Politico

Something tells me this is going to be a difficult trial to keep control of.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.