Roger Stone was in court today groveling for his freedom after making a grave mistake earlier this week when he posted a photo on his Instagram of the Judge presiding over his case, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, with crosshairs in the corner.
The caption underneath said:
“Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointed judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again [sic] Hillary Clinton and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction of any crime"
He also asked for money for his legal defense fund.
He later deleted the photo and his attorneys filed a formal apology with the court. it was not enough and he was ordered to appear in front of Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Thursday at 2:30pm to explain what he did.
In the above clip, MSNBC's Ryan Reilly talks about what he saw in court during today's hearing:
WALLACE: Ryan, could you take us inside the courtroom and give us a little bit of the ticktock? I have only ever seen him looking smug. Did he look contrite? Whatever he looked like, the judge didn't buy it. But can you take us inside, describe some of the atmospherics for us?
RYAN REILLY: Yes, for that crucial 15 minutes where they were awaiting the judge's ruling he was sort of sitting back, looking around the room, talking to his lawyers a bit. But there were a couple deep sighs and deep breaths and realizing, I think, the severity of the situation. Ultimately the judge didn't think his apology was genuine. It was a remarkable situation where you had Roger Stone actually take the witness stand and questioned pretty aggressively not only by the judge but by the special counsel team there. And really did sort of a remarkable job taking apart the back end of stone's operation and how he with these volunteers. The judge was particularly interested in how he actually went about selecting the photograph he posted of her. She said there are a lot of photographs online. There's an official photograph of her on the court's website they could have used. So why go with this one that had this marking in the middle that she considered to be threatening there. It was really remarkable to see this sort of situation where roger stone on the stand testifying and not being believed by the judge, frankly.
WALLACE: I don't know why she wouldn't believe him. Here's what he tweeted this morning. This is Roger Stone this morning. "Help me in my epic fight against the anti-real Donald Trump deep state. Get your Roger Stone did nothing wrong." Here's the deal, I could never figure out what the case is to believe any of these people. Why would you believe him in court when this morning this is what he distributed on social media? And I agree with Harry, he's running a gofundme campaign.
At the end of the hearing it was clear the the judge did not buy what Stone was selling, but she decided to give him an even worse punishment than jail. She gagged him. At least from jail he could hold court, make phone calls all day and conduct interviews. Now he has to stay in public, but cannot speak about the case, the judge, anything.
Check. Mate.
Ed. Note: Speaking of gags...
