A day after posting a photograph online of a federal judge which included a crosshairs near her head, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered Roger Stone to appear at a Thursday hearing to explain what he was doing, and whether it should impact restrictions imposed on Stone about charges brought against him in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and any ties to the Trump campaign.
In an order issued Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson summoned Stone to explain "why the media contact order entered in this case and/or his conditions of release should not be modified or revoked in light of the posts on his Instagram account."
Stone posted the photo on Monday - and stood by it for much of the day - repeating his objections to having his case assigned to Judge Jackson, who is also presiding over a case brought by the Special Counsel's office against 12 Russian intelligence agents, charged with hacking materials from Democrats during the 2016 campaign.
"Any inference that this in someway threatens the judge is false," Stone wrote on Monday about the photo - which he then pulled down.
"Undersigned counsel, with the attached authority of Roger J. Stone, hereby apologizes to the Court for the improper photograph and comment posted on Instragram today. Mr. Stone recognizes the impropriety and had it removed," his lawyers wrote.
But that evidently was not enough for Judge Jackson, whose order raised the question of whether further limits would be placed on Stone, a political operative who worked briefly for the Trump campaign, and has been charged with coordinating actions between the campaign and Wikileaks over emails involving the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Stone has charged that the Special Counsel's office wrongly tipped off CNN to his imminent arrest in late January; last week, the judge ordered the feds to submit information about that matter.
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