Roger Stone, the indicted longtime friend & advisor to President Donald Trump, has issued an apology to Judge Amy Berman Jackson for posting a picture of her under crosshairs to Instagram over the weekend.
Jackson is the presiding judge for Stone's case in DC federal court.
"Please inform the Court that the photograph and comment today was improper and should not have been posted. I had no intention of disrespecting the Court and humbly apologize to the Court for the transgression," Stone said in a letter submitted to the court by his attorneys on Monday.
"Undersigned counsel, with the attached authority of Roger J. Stone, hereby apologizes to the Court for the improper photograph and comment posted to Instagram today," the letter continued. "Mr. Stone recognizes the impropriety and had it removed."
After the post was deleted, Stone wrote on Instagram that the image was "misinterpreted," and that the crosshairs were merely part of the organization which created the picture.
In a text to CBS reporter Kathryn Watson, Stone said he was reacting to "the manner in which my case was assigned to a specific judge rather than the judge being selected randomly."
Jackson issued a gag order on Stone and his attorneys last Friday, forbidding Stone and his legal team from discussing the case on courthouse grounds.
On Tuesday morning, amid the fallout from the Instagram post, Jackson responded. She ordered Stone back to court to explain why the gag order and conditions of his release should not be made more restrictive, based on his behavior.
"Defendant is ordered to show cause at a hearing to be held on Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 2:30 P.M. as to why the media contact order entered in this case and/or his conditions of release should not be modified or revoked in light of the posts on his Instagram account."
Stone may be playing games, but Jackson is not.
What was Stone thinking?
Some serious chutzpah.
People have three words for the judge.
Stone was charged in January with five counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering pertaining to his contacts with Wikileaks during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Following his arraignment, Stone had tried to get Jackson to pass his case off to another judge, but she denied his request. Stone said in a second now-deleted Instagram post that Jackson, an Obama appointee, was overseeing a "show trial" enabled by "legal trickery" by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose office filed the indictments.
“Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson," Stone wrote, knocking Jackson as "an Obama appointed Judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again [sic] Hillary Clinton and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction for any crime."
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