Anonymous ID: 7c4b07 Dec. 4, 2018, 2:08 p.m. No.4152132   🗄️.is đź”—kun

>>4152097

Republican operative and longtime Trump ally Roger Stone is resisting a request for documents and an interview from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.

 

In a letter released Tuesday by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Stone’s attorney described the document request as “unreasonably broad” in scope and characteristic of a “fishing expedition.”

 

Grant Smith, the attorney, also wrote that Stone would invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid sitting for an interview and to protect himself from being ensnared in “ambiguous circumstances.”

 

Feinstein initially requested documents from Stone in November 2017 as part of lawmaker efforts to probe any links between President Trump and Russia. The documents requested from Stone include communications between him and WikiLeaks, as well as those with Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign.

 

Stone indicated in April that he would provide the documents, the Associated Press reported at the time, though he described the request as “approaching absurd” and based on “numerous presumptions.”

 

In a Dec. 3 letter made public by Feinstein on Tuesday, Stone ruled out the request.

 

“Mr. Stone respectfully declines to produce any documents and declines the invitation for an interview,” Smith wrote. “The production of documents that may be responsive to the unreasonably broad scope of the imprecise, fishing expedition, request would unquestionably be a testimonial act protected by the U.S. Constitution.”

 

Stone has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers on Capitol Hill and from special counsel Robert Mueller as a result of his public pronouncements about WikiLeaks before the 2016 election. Stone appeared to forecast the Hillary Clinton document releases by WikiLeaks in the weeks and months before the organization began publishing emails from the account of John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, that have since been tied to a Russian hacking operation.

 

Mueller appears to be probing whether Stone or any other individuals in President Trump’s orbit had advanced knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans. Stone maintains that he didn’t, and that his tweets and other public statements were based on publicly available information.

 

Smith also pointed out in the letter to Feinstein that Stone sat for a closed-door interview with the House Intelligence Committee in its now-defunct investigation into Russian interference, a transcript of which is expected to be released by the committee at some point in the near future.

https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/419727-stone-declines-dem-request-for-interview-documents-invoking-fifth