Roger Stone pushed back Wednesday against Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress. “Mr. Cohen’s statement is not true,” he texted The Daily Beast after Cohen claimed he gave then-candidate Donald Trump a heads-up on WikiLeaks’ release of the Podesta emails.
Stone’s statement—he commented to other outlets in addition to The Daily Beast—raised eyebrows because a federal judge put him under a gag order last week regarding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The gag order bars Stone from discussing anything related to that probe. Though none of Mueller’s charges against Stone involve alleged activity he engaged in during the presidential campaign, the special counsel has keen interest in WikiLeaks.
Reached by phone, a lawyer for Stone declined to comment on whether Stone violated his gag order. Ken White, a First Amendment lawyer, said Stone is likely on safe ground. “Judge Jackson’s revised gag order permits Roger Stone to state his innocence,” White said. “Saying that a specific accusation is not true probably falls into that category. If not, it would highlight that the gag order is too ambiguous to be effective or enforceable." —Betsy Woodruff
