Roger Stone tells court he alone is entitled to see the Mueller report
In a flurry of legal filings, Roger Stone's defense team argues that he and his defense team should be allowed an exclusive look at the Mueller report.
They also claim that since Attorney General Robert Barr has declared there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, that "there is no there there" as regards charges against Stone.
And finally, his defense argues that the whole special counsel investigation was not constitutionally funded because Congress did not specifically appropriate funds for special counsel offices and that Congress has not explicitly provided that the special counsel can investigate a president or his presidential campaign.
"If the President and his presidential campaign cannot be investigated by the Executive Branch’s Department of Justice, then the investigation of Roger Stone, which was the direct fruit of that poisoned tree, must fall," according to one filing.
The filings were made Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which will oversee his case.
Stone, 66, was arrested in January and pleaded not guilty to one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of making false statements and one count of witness tampering.
Among other things, he is accused of lying to Congress about his activities linked to information obtained through the Russian hacking of Democratic Party emails and its release through WikiLeaks. He faces trial Nov. 5 in Washington, D.C.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent almost two years investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections, including whether there was any collusion between the Russians and the Donald Trump campaign.
Stone, a self-described political "political-trickster," is a longtime friend and political adviser to Trump.
While much of the political world awaits a peek at the Mueller report, Stone's team argues that he is the only person with a compelling case to see it.
"The Special Counsel Report may be of political interest to many," the defense team argues in a motion to dismiss the entire case. It may be of commercial interest to others. It may be of public interest to some. But for Roger Stone, the Special Counsel’s Report is a matter of protecting his liberty. Only by full disclosure to him, can he determine whether the Report contains material which could be critical to his defense."
In a separate filing, the defense assures the court that Stone, a political gadfly for a half-century, would keep it under wraps.
"To be clear, Stone is not requesting the Report be disclosed to the world – only to his counsel so that it may aid in preparing his defense," the filing says.
As for dismissing his case, Stone and his defense team note that Barr, in a letter referring to the still unreleased report by Mueller, said he found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
"Now that the Department of Justice has concluded that there was no conspiracy between Russian agents and any American citizen, including Roger Stone, this 'connection' is unsubstantiated," Stone's defense team argues.
"Other than an allegation that Russians, and Stone, independently had some type of contact with WikiLeaks via Twitter, there is no there there," Stone argues in a motion for reconsideration.
On another tack, the team argues that the special counsel's office itself was unconstitutionally organized and that Congress has not explicitly provided that the special counsel can investigate a president or his presidential campaign.
“Nothing could encroach more upon the President’s duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed than having a Special Prosecutor continually looking over his shoulder, threatening him or the members of his executive branch with potential prosecution for every act they take,” Stone’s defense team wrote..
U.S. vs. Roger J. Stone Jr. by Doug Stanglin on Scribd
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Roger Stone tells court he alone is entitled to see the Mueller report
