Stone asks judge to suppress evidence against him

Roger Stone asked a judge on Friday to suppress certain evidence in the case against him, claiming that it was improperly obtained.

Stone’s lawyers wrote in a filing that because federal prosecutors said they will not need to prove that Russians were behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), or that Russian gave hacked materials to WikiLeaks, any search warrants issued asserting that those scenarios took place were approved on an “inadequate basis.”

{mosads}The filing states that the search warrant applications about Stone showed that the FBI initially investigated him for a range of different potential crimes, including unauthorized access of a protected computer, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, attempt and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and violation of a ban on foreign contributions.

“It is clear, however, that the government has relied on the assumptions made by a source outside of the U.S. intelligence community that the Russian State was involved in the hacking and that the data taken from the various servers were given to WikiLeaks,” the document reads. “The government cannot prove either since it did not participate in the investigation at the earliest stage.”

Stone claimed that because the government cannot entirely prove that Russians provided the hacked Democratic information to WikiLeaks, “then the warrants must fail for lack of probable cause.”

He requested that the court hold a hearing on June 21 to determine whether or not the evidence should be suppressed.

“The indictment of Roger Stone is for obstruction of Congress, lying to Congress, and witness tampering; however, the purported crimes investigated and presented to the various courts reviewing the assorted warrants were much broader and were searching for a conspiracy between Stone, the Russians, or WikiLeaks,” the filing reads.

Special counsel Robert Mueller indicted several Russian military officers in the hack of the DNC.

Stone also on Friday requested that he be given unredacted versions of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s reports on its investigation into the DNC hack.

CrowdStrike, a private company, identified two separate breaches of the DNC networks in 2015 affiliated with Russians.

Stone’s attorneys wrote in the court filing that they “received copies of three, heavily redacted documents” but that the redactions stop them from being able “to mount a comprehensive defense against the charges leveled against him.”

They argue that the redacted portions of the reports could help clear Stone’s name and back his other motion to suppress evidence.

And they say they should be given access to the full reports because CrowdStrike is a private firm, not a government entity.

“The Reports were created for the DNC, not for or by the government. Consequently, the government has no right to pick and choose which pieces of evidence contained in these Reports it wants to disclose,” the filing reads. “The Defendant is entitled to full access of these Reports as the issue of whether or not the DNC was hacked is central to the Defendant’s defense.”

Stone has also sought the entire unredacted Mueller report, claiming that it’s necessary to argue his case.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing Stone’s case, has ordered the Justice Department to give her the unredacted parts of the report relating to Stone for her to review privately while she considers Stone’s request.

Stone was indicted earlier this year on charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, including impeding a congressional investigation, lying to Congress and witness tampering.

He has denied the allegations and will go to trial in November.

Stone Motion To Suppress Ev… on Scribd