Judge Barred Roger Stone From Using Social Media To Criticize The Criminal Case Against Him

* Ex-Trump adviser charged with lying to Congress,
obstruction

A federal judge who has warned Roger Stone to stop criticizing
the criminal case against him on social media finally banned him
from the platforms outright.

Prosecutors have complained to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman
Jackson that the longtime Republican party operative and former
adviser to President Donald Trump has been using social media to
assail the government’s case, in violation of her February ruling.
Jackson read her ruling from the bench, following a 45-minute
recess from a two-hour-long hearing.

“I’ve twice given you the benefit of the doubt,” she told Stone,
saying he had forced his lawyers into contortions to contend he was
in compliance with her directives.

Reprising a theme she raised in the case of former Trump
campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jackson said Stone’s behavior “had
more to do with middle school than with a court of law” and banned
him from posting on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, and even from
reposting or liking other people’s content on the platforms.

Stone is accused of lying to Congress about his contacts with
WikiLeaks over its publication of material damaging to Democrat
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He is also charged
with obstruction and witness tampering. The case is set for trial
in November. His was the last indictment brought by Special Counsel
Robert Mueller. The case is now being prosecuted by the office of
Washington U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu.

On Tuesday, Stone’s defense lawyers argued that the government
can’t prove Russian agents hacked Democratic Party computers during
the election. That makes 18 FBI search warrants, and any evidence
recovered with them, invalid, they said.

Defense attorney Robert Buschel told the judge the warrants
weren’t obtained in good faith. He said they were based only on
reports by a private cybersecurity and the U.S. intelligence
community’s “high confidence” that the Russians were behind the
theft of materials later published by WikiLeaks, not on factual
certainty.

Buschel called it “government doublespeak,” suggesting the theft
was just as likely to have been carried out by agents of China or
the U.K.

That line of argument drew a pointed response from Jackson, who
repeatedly asked Buschel to identify a single statement in any of
the filings that he saw as knowingly false or reckless — and what
that had to do with the charges against Stone.

“I’m asking you now,” Jackson said after a series of exchanges
with the attorney. “I want you to read me a false sentence.”

The Russia Connection
Stone’s lawyers have sought to discredit the Russia connection by
suggesting that metadata on the WikiLeaks documents came from a
portable memory device connected to a computer from which they were
downloaded and not through a trans-Atlantic computer
connection.

Even accepting that premise, Jackson asked, how would that
invalidate the warrants?

Buschel replied that lack of conclusive proof of Russian hacking
rendered Stone’s allegedly false statements to the congressional
committee probing the incursion “irrelevant.”

Prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky defended the warrants, telling Jackson
that Stone’s lawyers were “trying to backdoor a debunked conspiracy
theory” about other potential hackers, relieving the Russians of
culpability.

“There is voluminous evidence that the Russians were responsible
for hacking” the Democratic Party computers, Zelinsky told the
judge. In any event, he said, Stone was charged with lying to
Congress and other offenses, not with being involved in the
hacking.

The case is U.S. v. Stone, 19-cr-18, U.S. District Court,
District of Columbia (Washington).

Cullled from bloomberg.com

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SP Lawan Appoints Awoniyi, Abusidiq as Media
Aides

Senate President, Ahmad Lawan has approved the appointments of
Karage Mohammed Mamman and Ola Awoniyi as his Deputy Chief of Staff
and Special Adviser on Media respectively.

This was contained in a statement issued today by the Special
Assistant to the Senate President on Media and Publicity, Mohammed
Isa.

Other appointments approved by the Senate President, according
to the statement were that of Abubakar Sidiq Usman as Special
Assistant on New Media, Kabir Adamu as Special Adviser on Security
and Intellegence, and Muhammad Mukhtar Yawale as Special Adviser on
Health.

All the appointments are with immediate effect.

The 58 year old Awoniyi, according to the statement, is a
graduate of University of Ibadan where he obtained a B.Sc in
Psychology and holds Masters in Law Enforcement and Criminal
Justice (MLC) and Masters in International Affairs and Diplomacy
(MIAD) both from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. He also
obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism from International
Institute of Journalism, Abuja in 1997.

He worked with Nigerian Tribune for over a decade before he
joined the services of Agence France-Press (AFP), where he is the
Head of Abuja office.

The new Deputy Chief of Staff to the Senate President, Karage,
according to the statement is a graduate of University of Sokoto
where he obtained Bachelor of Arts (Education).

He retired as Director in Federal Ministry of Education in
2018.

On his part, Usman, popularly know as Abu Sidiq, according to
the statement graduated from Federal University of Technology,
Minna where he obtained both his first and second degrees.

A reknown blogger, Abu Sidiq was the head of Social Media Unit
of the Field Operations Directorate of All Progressive Congress
(APC) during the 2019 general elections.

Mohammed Isa
Special Assistant to the Senate President on Media and
Publicity.