Posted on 11/06/2019 12:16:26 PM PST by yesthatjallen
A federal prosecutor on Wednesday told a jury that Roger Stone lied to Congress about his contacts with WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign in order to protect President Trump.
The accusation came in the government’s opening arguments in the trial for the longtime Trump adviser over charges of making false statements, obstruction and witness tampering.
“The evidence in this case will show that Roger Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee because the truth looked bad — the truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump,” Aaron Zelinsky, a prosecutor with the Department of Justice and a member of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team, told the jury.
SNIP
Stone's lawyer will be making an opening argument this afternoon.
Zelinsky also said Stone was conveying information passed onto him from WikiLeaks to the highest levels of the Trump campaign in the weeks before the group released a batch of stolen emails taken from John Podesta, the campaign chairman for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in October 2016.
“I have an idea To save Trump’s ass," Stone wrote in an email to Paul Manafort, the former chairman of the Trump campaign who is currently serving a prison sentence over fraud charges that also stemmed from the Mueller investigation.
“I do know how to win this but it ain’t pretty,” Stone said in a message to Stephen Bannon, Trump’s former campaign CEO and senior White House adviser.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Good question. Since Russian collusion has been debunked.
Hi.
Help me here.
“Protect Trump from what?”
5.56mm
It's business as usual. Republican appointed AG's are supposed to be hands off when the Deep State goes after them.
Don't want to "obstruct justice", after all.
SMH
The perfect swamp creature:
Aaron Zelinsky served as a law clerk for Justices John Paul Stevens (Ret.) and Anthony Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court, as well as Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch of the Israeli Supreme Court and Judge Thomas B. Griffith of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2010-2011 he served as Special Assistant to State Department Legal Adviser Harold Hongju Koh.
Aaron has taught constitutional law at the Peking University School of Transnational Law as well as foreign relations and national security law at the University of Maryland. Prior to law school he worked as deckhand on the Brazilian tall ship Tocorime and as a field assistant tracking migratory birds in the Negev Desert.
Sos the judge says jury members can not be excluded for bias against Trump. But the prosecution is making the trial all about Trump? See ya in appeals court.
James Clapper got caught lying under oath to Congress in open testimony on two separate occasions. He even admitted later that he lied.
And nothing....absolutely nothing....ever happened to him.
Going after Trump's associates and campaign people is selective prosecution, plain and simple. Period.
If they were interested in people telling the truth to Congress, they would have arrested and charged Hillary Clinton for lying to Congress about Benghazi.
But I digress. She is a favored democRAT.
What’s the big deal?
Congress LIES to the American people ALL THE FRIGGING TIME!!!!
I must confess my ignorance. What exactly is wrong with using information from Wiki-leaks provided that information is true? Is exposing the wrong-doings of a political opponent somehow a great crime now?
Posted by Fedora a while back in a thread about Mueller’s ‘dream team.’:
...Aaron Zelinsky (Yale ‘10) is one of the least experienced members of the SCO. Zelinsky made a name for himself as a blogger (his blog is currently on a private setting) during the 2008 presidential campaign. He continued his writing after graduating, including an article in 2013 on how courts “encourage leaking.” Zelinsky went on to clerk for retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who once credited the young lawyer for doing “research” on the movie Gone With the Wind to refresh Stevens’s recollection of the film.
Zelinsky became an assistant U.S. attorney in 2014, and in 2016 received the Excellence in Prosecution of Organized Crime award from the DoJ. Zelinsky is on detail from the Justice Department while working for the SCO. Just this month, defendants in a bank fraud and identity theft case that Zelinsky prosecuted were sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The initial charges the special counsel filed against Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate Richard Gates did not reveal the names of the attorneys on the case. Subsequent court filings, however, have shown that the Manafort case involves prosecutors Andrew Weissmann, Greg Andres, and Kyle Freeny, seasoned trial attorneys with substantial experience prosecuting money laundering and fraud....
Stone should not serve a day in jail/prison, even if convicted! POTUS Trump should at a minimum commute any jail/prison sentence Stone receives to time served immediately after sentencing.
That way Stone could still pursue an appeal of his conviction from the comfort of his home rather than a 6X8 prison cell, knowing he will remain free regardless of how the appeal turns out.
Trump could also grant Stone a full, unconditional pardon if he’s convicted, prior to sentencing or later. But if Stone accepts the pardon, then he cannot appeal the conviction.
From what I've read, Stone was aggressive about inquiring about the WikiLeaks release of Clinton's emails. He is being charged with lying about his aggressiveness to Congress and the SC.
Stone has about as much of an inside track to the hub of the Trump campaign as the average person on the street.
So if I understand it. He is in trouble because he didn’t play nice for Congress?
Almost 3 years into Trump’s administration and they still don’t have control of the DoJ. Sad.
Not only that, but he could spend 20 years in a federal pen for it, basically a life sentence at this point. Murderers sometimes get 5 years in a state pen, out in 3.
lying to congress under oath.. bad.
Congress lying to the people.. ok.
two sets of rules..
This country is f*#@ed.
That is the way I read it.
He is in trouble because he wouldn’t dish dirt on Trump.Had he made up some crap he would have been a free man.
Congress lies to the American People on a daily basis.
We send them $$$ as a thank you for lying.
What twisted world.
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