Special Counsel Robert Mueller told a federal judge on Monday about an image Roger Stone posted to Instagram that suggests Mueller 'framed' the former Trump adviser.
'Who Framed Roger Stone,' it read, mimicking the film poster from the 1988 comedy 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' Stone's version was a solicitation for his legal defense fund.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled in February that Stone would be permitted to raise money for his defense, and to proclaim his innocence, but otherwise forbade him from making any public comments about his trial on charges of lying to investigators, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
The note about Ston'e Instagram account was an afterthought. Muellerwrote to alert Jackson that a new introduction Stone wrote to accompany the impending release of his book, titled 'The Myth of Russia Collusion,' was available to the public on Amazon com.
In it, Stone writes that 'Mr. Mueller may frame me for some bogus charge in order to silence me or induce me to testify against the president.'
Roger Stone posted a series of images on Instagram Sunday, one of which might have violated a February 21 gag order barring him from discussing his case on social media
The image, which references being 'framed' by Robert Mueller, which Stone posted on Sunday and later deleted after his lawyer was contacted by a reporter about it
'I now find myself on Crooked Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's hit list because I've advised Donald Trump for the past forty years. I am being targeted not because I committed a crime, but because the Deep State liberals want to silence me and pressure me to testify against my good friend,' Stone writes.
Stone's attorneys also wrote to Judge Jackson on Monday, asking her to clarify her February 21 gag order – and insisting that none of the book's new material was written after her ruling.
'The Publisher received the draft on January 14, 2019; edits were made and approved on January 15, 2019. To the best of Stone’s knowledge, information, and belief, not a single word in the book was created after February 21, 2019,' the attorneys wrote.
'[W]ith the pre-February 21, 2019 printing by the Publisher, and the imminent general relase of the book’s contents, including the [introduction], Defendant respectfully requests that the publication of this book ... should not be viewed as contravening the Court’s prohibitions,' they added.
Mueller wrote a short time later to tell the judge about the Instagram posting, which mirrored the language in Stone's new writing.
'We note for the Court that according to public reporting, on March 3, 2019, the defendant’s Instagram account shared an image with the title “who framed Roger Stone,' Mueller and Jessie Liu, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote.
Stone first published the book as 'The Making of the President 2016' after President Trump's inauguration in 2017. The retitled version includes Stone's new text.
'A preview of the defendant’s book, including the updated Introduction referenced in the defendant’s Motion to
