Roger Stone Judge Won’t Let Defense Tie Case to Russian Hackers

(Bloomberg) -- Roger Stone was charged as part of the investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but jurors at his November trial won’t hear much about that probe after a federal judge barred his lawyers from basing their defense on what it failed to conclusively prove.

Stone, an ally of President Donald Trump, was accused of undermining a Congressional investigation into whether Russians stole information from Democratic Party computers to supply damaging information to WikiLeaks. His lawyers say any lies he told the panel weren’t important if the U.S. couldn’t prove the Russians were behind the hack.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson got the Stone case because she’s also assigned to the case that Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought against 12 Russian military intelligence agents for that hack. However Jackson refused to allow Stone’s lawyers to relate the two prosecutions during a hearing Wednesday on what rules will govern the evidence each side can present at trial in November.

“This indictment does not charge Roger Stone with conspiracy related to the hacking or anything else,” the judge said. Jackson continued, referring to the case against the Russians, saying “we are not going to have that trial in this court room until the defendants are present.”

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Nov. 5.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Heather Smith, Peter Jeffrey

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