Stone Seeks To Disqualify Judge

This can be brief. Stone has already been sentenced, so it's hard to see that he has much to lose:

Alex Salvi
@alexsalvinews 

NEW: Roger Stone has filed a motion to disqualify the judge in his case. 

His lawyers allege her remarks about jurors at his sentencing suggest she is not impartial in regard to whether a juror improperly served on his case.

9:44 PM · Feb 21, 2020

Kyle Cheney
@kyledcheney

JUST IN: Roger Stone is moving to force Judge Amy Berman Jackson to recuse herself because she praised the jurors for serving with "integrity."

Stone says she can't rule fairly on his motion for a new trial (based on juror bias) because of this.

9:31 PM · Feb 21, 2020

UPDATED: About The Stone Jury

I've been looking around for a good summary of what's been coming out about several members of the Stone jury empaneled by Judge Amy Berman Jackson. A good, brief, but informative post can be found at Zerohedge: Lead Juror In Roger Stone Trial Was Left-Wing Former Political Candidate Who Despises Trump.

Here are a few important points--which you can read more about at the link. Techno-Fog notes that much will center around how the jurors answered the court questionnaire, which asks questions about things like ... political activity (running for office), social media activity, interest in the Russia Hoax (Mueller), etc. At this point we don't know how the jurors--and especially the foreman, Tomeka Hart, a leftwing activist who participated in anti-Trump protests--answered those questions.

However, Mike Cernovich offers what should be highly relevant information:

Meanwhile, Hart - who was a Democratic congressional candidate in Tennessee in 2012 [photo with Donna Brazile at the time], has a Twitter history littered with anti-Trump propaganda and was actively posting on social media during the trial. This, as attorney and journalist @Techno_Fog points out, raises questions over how she responded to the juror questionnaire which asked specific questions regarding social media, the Mueller investigation, and running for public office. 

Her Twitter feed shows dozens of references to Trump, many of them links to negative stories about the Republican. In a Twitter post on Aug. 19, 2017, Hart quoted a tweet referring to Trump as the “#KlanPresident,” in an apparent reference to the KKK. -Daily Caller

In a trial that was strongly focused on Trump, this is important, because Hart's during-the-trial tweets were strongly anti-Trump. A Hart tweet on the day of Stone's guilty verdict also suggests that her political biases played an important role--the tweet is nothing but four emoticons: two red hearts (denoting joy?) and two clenched fists appearing to belong to "people of color." So, political bias and racial bias, all in one tweet. For Hart the verdict seems to have been viewed as a blow against the white GOP Klan presidency klique, as it were.

Who We Are As Americans?

Who are we, as Americans? Liberals regularly parrot that arrogant mantra popularized by Obama: "That's not who we are as Americans," or other words to that effect.

Mark Penn has a disturbing answer to that question, Who we are as Americans, or Who we are becoming, in his latest must-read article: Defending the First Amendment, even for Roger Stone. We've written about Judge Amy Berman Jackson's actions before,

Woops!

The Myth Of Equal Protection

The Meaning Of The Roger Stone Indictment

Saul Alinsky, The Arrest Of Roger Stone, And The Uses Of Power

her blatant favoring of Team Mueller against American citizens--actions that should shame us all, as Americans. Authorizing secret police style raids on non-violent defendants, holding such defendants indefinitely in solitary confinement to force their cooperation, gagging defendants while the government leaks at will.

Read the whole thing--it's excellent. Here are a few choice excerpts:


Roger Stone can no longer criticize Judge Amy Berman Jackson, but I sure can. She should be removed from the Stone case without delay for her threats to jail him over mere speech and the extreme prejudice she has expressed against the defendant.

Of course Roger Stone makes ridiculous and often inane pronouncements. He’s Roger Stone. But that’s what the First Amendment is for — holding public officials (or anyone else, for that matter) accountable for their actions and calling them out boldly.

[Stone's public statements that] ... special counsel Robert Mueller has used a technicality to avoid random judge selection and get the same Obama appointee that denied bail to Paul Manafort in a highly unusual move, was core-protected political speech. It’s criticism of the powerful by the powerless.

Judge Jackson’s argument that Stone could prejudice the jury pool, given what’s gone on in this case, is absurd. It’s a lame excuse to insulate the judge from legitimate criticism. The special counsel arrested Roger Stone with guns drawn, amphibious units and bullet-proof vests, as though they were attacking a terrorist compound, not a Florida retirement home with a dog and a deaf wife. And the cameras from CNN were there, in advance, to capture the whole event. It was broadcast around the world. Now, that’s what I would call prejudicial.

The Myth Of Equal Protection

Citizens of these United States are supposed to receive Equal Protection under our laws. Somehow that doesn't always seem to work out, now that we have a Deep State--and if you don't believe there is such a thing, noted legal scholar Jack Goldsmith is here to educate you about the reality of the system we live in. In these United States in the twenty first century, equal protection of the law is--a legal fiction.

Is it equal protection when the prosecutor gets to pick the judge? I don't think so, but that's what has happened in the Roger Stone case. Using the claim that Stone's case is somehow "related" to the Paul Manafort, Team Mueller has bypassed the usual random selection of judges afforded to most defendants and had the Stone case assigned to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is currently holding Manafort in solitary confinement.

Robert Barnes‏

@Barnes_Law 

How did the SAME federal judge in a district of 21 judges manage to get "randomly assigned" the email case, the Manafort case and the #RogerStone case? By the flagrant misuse of "related case" listing from team #Mueller to make sure their deferential Obama-appointed judge oversaw 

8:16 AM - 1 Feb 2019

The alleged crimes are different and the defendants are different and the evidence is totally different and unrelated, so how are the two cases related? Well, the prosecutor is the same--but that's not what the "related case" rule is about. It seems Team Mueller was pleased with Berman Jackson's handling of Manafort. And now she seems poised to treat Stone in similar fashion:

Brad Heath

@bradheath
A federal judge warned Roger Stone today not to treat the criminal case against him as "a book tour," and said she's considering imposing a gag order to quiet him.

12:08 PM - 1 Feb 2019

Think about that. Stone was arrested in a completely unnecessary and highly public predawn raid by 29 heavily armed FBI agents before CNN cameras, in what  was clearly an abusive and prejudicial operation intended to poison the jury pool. That had nothing to do with Stone--it was strictly the choice of Team Mueller and the FBI. And now the judge is telling Stone that he may no longer be allowed the exercise of his First Amendment rights? According to USAToday, Berman Jackson

said she was concerned that the continued publicity surrounding the case against the 66-year-old political operative could “taint” the jury pool. She gave Stone's lawyers and federal prosecutors until next Friday to tell her whether she should issue an order preventing them all from talking publicly about the case.