This is what Roger Stone is prohibited from doing......

[jberryhill]

Among other things:

"...the conditions of defendant's pretrial release 21 are hereby modified to include the condition that, and the February 15, 2019 media communications order 36 is hereby modified to provide that, the defendant is prohibited 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 prohibition includes, but is not limited to, statements made about the case through the following means: radio broadcasts; interviews on television, on the radio, with print reporters, or on internet based media; press releases or press conferences; blogs or letters to the editor; and posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other form of social media. Furthermore, the defendant may not comment publicly about the case indirectly by having statements made publicly on his behalf by surrogates, family members, spokespersons, representatives, or volunteers."

Roger Stone sent a one sentence text to Buzzfeed stating:

"Mr. Cohen's statement is not true."

So the question is:

Is that text a statement "about the Special Counsel's investigation or this case or any of the participants in the investigation or the case"?

When you talk about locking people up for things, there have to be unambiguous reasons for doing that. The order does not prevent Roger Stone from making public comments in general. The order does not prevent Roger Stone from making comments to reporters. The order prevents him from doing that if the comments are "about the Special Counsel's investigation or this case or any of the participants in the investigation or the case".

In order to lock him up, you have to show that "Mr. Cohen's statement is not true" is a statement "about the Special Counsel's investigation or this case or any of the participants in the investigation or the case".

Is it:

1. About the Special Counsel's investigation? No.
2. About any of the participants in the investigation or the case? No.

So that leaves open the remaining possibility:

3. Is it about "the case"?

It seems to be a comment about Michael Cohen's statement, which is not about "the case" if that is meant to refer to the criminal prosecution of Roger Stone.

[berni_mccoy]

1. Cohen is a participant in the Special Counsel's case and investigation. He is a witness.

So Roger Stone has violated his gag order.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Agree

[LiberalFighter]

2. Disagree

[jberryhill]

5. You disagree with a question?

[BumRushDaShow]

4. "Furthermore, the defendant may not comment publicly about the case indirectly by having statements

made publicly on his behalf by surrogates".

This is what seemed to have happened today! I would assume the Judge was talking specifically about Stone's own "case".

Cohen directly dropped Stone's name multiple times in relationship to Wikileaks and the DNC email document dumps, which I thought WAS part of the case that directly related to Stone. I.e., the Stone indictment paperwork mentions communications that Stone had related to Wikileaks. A copy of the indictment document is here - https://www.washingtonpost.com/roger-stone-indictment/7cedd188-130a-4fa3-8736-904a46747c92_note.html

His statement - https://www.c-span.org/video/?458125-1/michael-cohen-testifies-house-oversight-committee&vod&start=1617

(of course you are the lawyer so.... )

[jberryhill]

6. People were convinced he'd be locked up last time too

Cohen made a lot of statements. Stone is not specific to any one of them.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. I expect the timing of the release of that statement

might help with the context.

[hlthe2b]

8. Laurence Tribe on Stone's tweet and whether or not it violates his gag order: "YES"

I think I'll take the preeminent Laurence Tribe's opinion on this.

Link to tweet

That said, I don't see the Judge sending him to jail on this one tweet. She's being exceedingly cautious (and fair)

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Because it didn't seem blatant and could be construed as proclaiming innocence I think he skates...

...on this particular statement.

I still think a blatant violation on his part in the next couple of weeks is al but inevitable, however.

[EffieBlack]

11. He didn't publicly proclaim his innocence

He made a public statement that a witness in Mueller's case is lying in his testimony about matters directly related to that case. That unequivocally violates the judge's order not to publicly comment on the case or anyone involved in it.

[EffieBlack]

10. Michael Cohen is a participant in Mueller's case. Stone publicly stated he was lying about

matters directly related to the case. Claiming that this was a comment about his "statement" and not about him or the case is more than a stretch.

[jberryhill]

12. Odd, then, that the prosecution did not even mention this communication in today's filing

The prosecution has submitted its comments on the forthcoming book (which the publisher had prior to any order bearing on Stone), and on yesterday's instagram adventure, but was apparently not as attentive as the internet in suggesting that this text was relevant to the order:

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.203583/gov.uscourts.dcd.203583.54.0_14.pdf

[uponit7771]

13. Stone will claim he did not make the statement

[Caliman73]

14. Actually, he sent an Instagram post.

The post has a picture of him and asks the question... Who Framed Roger Stone?

Underneath is a website for his defense fund.

I would wager that this constitutes a statement about the Mueller investigation.

[jberryhill]

15. The OP is about the text to the Buzzfeed reporter

About which a number of folks got excited. Except for the prosecutors.

The Instagram post is another kettle of fish.

[Caliman73]

16. I see.

I would hang my hat more on the Instagram post than on comments about Cohen. Cohen's testimony was to Congress, not linked to Mueller's investigation.


People despise Stone so much that anything that looks damaging is picked up and taken to the extreme.

[pnwmom]

17. What do you think about the other kettle of fish?

The Instagram about who framed Roger Stone?

Also, the other issue. The judge asked the defense last week to report when Stone's "new" book would be coming out. It's actually an old book with a new intro by Alan Dershowitz. And it turns out that intro was already readable online (at Amazon, at least) on the day the judge asked the question. (It actually might have been available online as early as Feb. 19 -- 2 days before the gag order.)

But the defense team didn't inform the judge about the book -- expected in stores on March 1 -- at the time of the gag order. And in the court hearing on Friday, they didn't inform the judge that the new intro (written in Jan. 2019) was already published online.

Do you have an educated guess about how the judge might react to all this?

[jberryhill]

18. The book is probably the easier one to deal with

Unlike an internet discussion forum, the court has to consider both sides.

Stone has submitted a declaration from the publisher showing...

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.203583/gov.uscourts.dcd.203583.55.0_1.pdf

"By virtue of the steps outlined above, prior to both February 8th, 2019 and February 21st, 2019, the New Edition had already been printed, shipped and distributed to the public and no changes could be made."

He was ordered to shut up on the 21st of February. If the book had already been printed and shipped at that time, what was he supposed to do about that?

The instagram post is mentioned by the prosecution in an offhand way in their filing today, and is not germane to what the parties were specifically ordered to submit comments upon in this particular round of filings. I guess it may hinge on whether it was part of a pre-loaded set of promotion posts for the books which go out on schedule, or whether he intentionally sent it at that time. Intent is everything, and the defense hasn't made an argument relative to the instagram post.

[pnwmom]

19. Thanks for the link. That link wasn't there the last time I checked. nt