Roger Stone, the Florida lobbyist who became a Trump campaign insider and a confidant of Donald Trump during the time that Wikileaks was disseminating hacked DNC emails from Russian operatives posing as “Guccifer 2.0,” is back in the news, and not in any kind of way that will make him happy.
There’s already the matter of Paul Manafort’s trial, which whether he likes it or not, Stone is going to be associated with — the two men were founders of a lobbying firm together in 1980, and their bond is part of the platform that made Manafort an attractive prospect to pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
But it’s an assistant of Stone’s, his media booking agent Andrew Miller, who is drawing attention to Stone now. Miller is just one of about a half dozen associates of Roger Stone during the 2016 campaign that the Mueller team has called on for questioning, but Miller took a hard tack: He absolutely refused to testify.
Now Judge Beryl Howell is holding Miller in contempt of court for his intransigence after Howell dismissed a request from Miller’s legal team to quash the subpoena on the grounds that Robert Mueller lacked the constitutional authority to send him a summons. Miller made the argument that Mueller was overreaching in the scope of his inquiry.
It’s unclear as to whether Miller is receiving direction from Roger Stone.
Mueller is seeking information on Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange, about Guccifer 2.0, and about DCLeaks, which was a website that posted the hacked emails and personal information of both current and former elected US officials, according to a report in the Washington Post.
It is widely believed that Miller’s legal team intends to appeal the dismissal of their request to quash the subpoena, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary — although multiple legal observers have pointed out that despite the 93-page memo they submitted in their request, their case is entirely without merit.
It was contacts between Stone himself and Julian Assange during the time that hacking and information dumps were taking place that raised scrutiny from the Special Counsel. But Miller is making waves in a bathtub, putting himself in a position to face prison to protect people who are going to be prosecuted anyway.
Featured image via screen capture
