Why They Intend to Gag Donald Trump… Been there, done that…
By Roger Stone
It’s bad enough that President Donald Trump must now face entirely contrived and politically motivated charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, but as I predicted last week on the Alex Jones Show, the President will now be subjected to a gag order that prevents him from defending himself in the face of a media assault in which the facts of the case are misstated and the credibility of the witnesses against him go unchallenged.
A gag order against the President would not only be unconstitutional, but would also constitute election interference, in view of the fact that Trump is currently a formally declared and filed candidate for the Republican nomination for President.
Those who argue that a gag order in Trump’s case would only be limited him to discussing the specifics of Bragg’s indictment of him or the handling of the case by the Prosecutors or the Judge misunderstand that because the indictment itself is entirely politically motivated, the gag itself would be interfering with his right to communicate with voters within the framework of his campaign, as well as violation of his free speech rights.
I know something about this because when I was charged in Robert Mueller’s politically motivated witch-hunt, Judge Amy Berman Jackson subjected me to a broad gag order, which was designed to prevent me from pointing out that the government had admitted in its filings in my case that the FBI never examined the computer servers for the Democratic National Committee—and to this day, contrary to the filings of prosecutors in my case, the government has no evidence whatsoever that would prove that the DNC was the target of an online hack by “Russian intelligence,” or anyone else.
In fact, long after my pardon on November 3rd, 2020, the U.S. Justice Department was forced, by federal court order, to release the long-redacted sections of Robert Mueller’s final Report, in which even he could not sugarcoat the fact that he had found “no factual evidence” of Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration, or any other crime on my part. At sentencing, the judge said, “You have been convicted of lying to cover-up for Donald Trump”—to which I can now say: “Cover up what? There was no Russian collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration on President Trump’s part, or mine, to lie about.”
Just today the Business Insider, a particularly biased and notoriously inaccurate left-wing propaganda organ recycled the claim that “Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime friend, was slapped with a gag order in 2019 amid special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, banning the self-described political trickster from posting about his case on Instagram and other social media platforms. Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed the restrictions after Stone violated a less stringent gag order by posting an image of her on Instagram with what appeared to be crosshairs.”
In fact, on February 18, 2019, I posted a graphic of Judge Amy Berman Jackson on my Instagram feed that had, in the upper left corner, the logo of the organization that created it: “Corruption Central.” Someone at BuzzFeed who has never held a rifle with a scope in his or her life, decided that the logo looked like a “crosshair on a rifle” and then accused me of “threatening to kill the judge.”
Lost in the immediate fake news feeding frenzy is the fact that this same logo appears in the same place on other images of individuals “Corruption Central” had publicly criticized, including Mark Zuckerberg and Kamala Harris. By the time the fake news media conflagration was over, this story became “Roger Stone posted a picture of the Judge with Crosshairs over her face,” which is entirely untrue.
I insisted at the time on my Infowars show that it was not a crosshair – which of course, it wasn’t – but I was pissing into a media-created tidal wave. I was summoned to Washington D.C. by the media-whipped-up Judge Amy Berman Jackson to explain this matter on the stand and under withering and accusatory cross-examination by both the Judge Jackson and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kravis (formerly a White House lawyer for Barack Obama, with a long reputation for the abuse of his power as a prosecutor, particularly in his investigation of the presidential campaign of Congressman Ron Paul). I said “I apologize to the Court for posting an image that was open to misinterpretation. It was not my intention to threaten anyone.”
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I admitted my own “stupidity” in posting the image that was subject to misinterpretation, but my abject apology did not satisfy Judge Jackson—who had also never held a rifle with a scope in her hands and wouldn’t know a gun’s sighting crosshairs if she fell over one. However, Judge Jackson kept insisting it was exactly that, a point which I continued to deny; correctly pointing out that the logo was based on a Celtic cross, as confirmed later in a sworn affidavit by the graphic artist who created it. Jackson insisted that there was a discrepancy between my explanation on the stand and what I had said on InfoWars the day before—but there wasn’t.
Prosecutors wanted me jailed, but Jackson knew she had overplayed her hand by throwing Paul Manafort into solitary confinement prior to his conviction of any crime, which did not sit well with other judges in the D.C. circuit who had a higher regard for the Constitution. I left the courthouse with my freedom, but I was hobbled by a constitutionally-questionable gag order. Now my deconstruction by the fake news really began.
I was shocked that my own lawyer, Bruce Rogow, who is known more as an appellate lawyer than a criminal defense attorney, called my actions “reprehensible” instead of bolstering my own adamant and accurate defense.
Among those who just flatly reported the image was a “crosshairs” despite testimony to the contrary were CNBC, MSNBC, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico. None of them quoted the insistence by me that the image was not a crosshair, as well as other denials wrapped in my apology. Nor, of course, did any of them pick up the story of the graphic artist who created the tiny image.
Other than silencing me regarding the falsity of the charges against me; the other purpose of the gag on me was to inhibit my ability to raise funds for my own legal defense. And so it is with Trump.
Incredibly, the gag order issued against me by Judge Amy Berman Jackson extended to my wife, family members and “supporters acting at my direction.” The judge also extended the gag order beyond the verdict in my trial and through sentencing, completely disproving her claim that I was gagged lest my meager posts on my then diminished social media platforms (I was banned on Twitter in 2017 but am now restored on Twitter @RogerJStoneJr) would somehow “taint” a potential jury pool (while the daily dumps on me by the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC did not affect the jury pool, of course…)
The attempts by my lawyers to appeal the gag order were not only wrongly structured, but the Court of Appeals essentially sat on our motion for 16 months while I sustained daily damage through the attacks on me in the media. Then, approximately a week before my trial, the Court of Appeals ruled that my appeal of the gag order was not ripe for decision because I had not first asked the very same judge who imposed the gag order on me to lift it, which, of course, she would never have done.
Trump’s lawyers must act aggressively to challenge any limit to his free speech by the Manhattan judge, however, they must also recognize that should he be indicted on federal charges by Special Counsel Jack Smith, Trump can expect a broader and more sweeping gag order designed to take away the bully pulpit of his presidential campaign and cripple his fundraising.
The imposition of a gag order tomorrow will, in fact, be a recognition that the charges against President Trump and his public handling of them have given him an immeasurable political and financial boost. With this gag order, they hope to recoup.
I just appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss just this: