Roger Stone, a confidant of President Donald Trump, says he won’t provide documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee or testify and will instead invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s top Democrat, a lawyer for Stone said the panel’s requests for information about people with whom Stone has communicated in the last three years were “far too overbroad, far too overreaching” and “far too wide ranging.”
“Mr. Stone’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege must be understood by all to be the assertion of a Constitutional right by an innocent citizen who denounces secrecy,” wrote Stone’s lawyer, Grant Smith.
Feinstein released the letter on Twitter on Tuesday.
Stone has been entangled in investigations by Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller into whether Trump aides had advance knowledge of Democratic emails published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election. He was interviewed last year by the House intelligence committee, and a transcript of that session may soon be released.
Stone has not been charged and has said he had no knowledge of the timing or specifics of WikiLeaks’ plans.
A federal grand jury has heard testimony for months from Stone associates and offered a plea deal to one friend, Jerome Corsi, that would have required him to admit to lying to investigators about a conversation he had with Stone about WikiLeaks. Corsi has rejected that offer.
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
7 Responses
I don’t understand why this Stone guy needs to plead the fifth. He was completely honest and nothing he did was wrong, so why can’t he just tell us all of the good and honest things that he did?
One must wonder if “M” is serious or sarcastic. I can’t actually tell. To start with, Stone is in the business of confidentiality even for perfectly legal matters (and part of that is being public about matters that create a diversion from real events, and that is the reason for his public persona). Campaign strategies, perfectly legal ones, are still confidential. Ask Mitt Romney what a “leak” (in that case a hidden video of a confidental gathering) of perfectly legal converstaion did to *his* campaign! So Stone’s credibility in terms of his profession would go the way of the dodo.
But even more to the point, Mueller’s tactics are standard obfuscations used (as example) against Scooter Libby by the then-special prosecutor then-appointed by Meuller’s friend Comey. Thus if Stone were to even try to give a list of everyone he talked to (meaning implicitly when as well) in the past 3 years (you try that “M”) and misses the newspaper boy he greeted while rushing out of the house on a specific day, then Meuller gets him for perjury.That is one small example of how these creatures twist the system to their own ends.
M,
The 5th also protects against government abuse. Perfectly innocent people can plead it. ( Ohio vs. Reiner).
Certainly, when Sen.Doofus, DiFi, of Kavanaugh fame, is involved and has no qualms about burying perfectly innocent people, you plead 5th as soon as she asks you your name.
Yea, cause innocent people never plead the fifth.
I recall hearing a certain degenerate lying adulterer say, “if you plead the fifth you must be guilty”
“a certain degenerate lying adulterer”
Well, that really narrows down the possibilities…
Alles, rt was referring to a certain vulgar, impetuous, ignorant (proudly so), vengeful bully that works in the DC area.