Roger Stone launches his appeal

President Donald Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone is appealing his conviction and three-year-plus prison sentence for seeking to impede congressional and FBI investigations into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016.

A lawyer for Stone filed a formal notice Thursday asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the case brought by special counsel Robert Mueller that led to trial last November where a jury found Stone guilty on all seven felony charges he faced.

The new filing doesn’t offer arguments against Stone’s convictions or sentence, but defense attorney Seth Ginsberg specifically included in the appeal U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s ruling earlier this month denying Stone’s bid for a new trial based on claims of juror misconduct and bias.

Stone’s lawyers argued that the forewoman of the jury, Tomeka Hart, misled the court by failing to disclose social media posts about the Mueller investigation. But Jackson ruled that Hart hadn’t lied to the court. And the judge said Stone’s lawyers could have found those posts during jury selection, but they conceded they never did that sort of research.

Jackson had ordered that Stone not be required to surrender to server his three-year, four-month prison sentence any earlier than Thursday, but his attorneys did not file any motion Thursday to ask that he be allowed to remain free pending appeal.

It is unclear how soon the federal Bureau of Prisons might order Stone to report to jail. Normally, that would happen within a month or two, but due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many federal prisons have stopped or slowed the process of accepting new inmates.

Stone’s appeal likely won’t be resolved for months, probably not until after the November election. However, a stay motion prompted by Stone being given a date to report to prison would almost certainly be ruled on the D.C. Circuit within days or weeks.

Stone and his allies have also been urging Trump to grant a pardon that would effectively erase any legal consequences of the conviction, obviating the need for the longtime political strategist to spend time behind bars. The president has repeatedly decried Stone’s prosecution and trial as miscarriage of justice, but has been cagey about whether or when he might grant clemency to his longtime adviser.

After Stone was sentenced in February, Trump seemed to signal that he preferred to see Stone vindicated through the legal process rather than have his conviction nullified by a presidential edict.

“I'm not going to do anything in terms of the great powers bestowed upon a president of the United States. I want the process to play out," Trump said. "I think that is the best thing to do. Because I would love to see Roger exonerated, and I would love to see it happen. Because I personally think that he was treated very unfairly."

source https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/30/roger-stone-launches-his-appeal-226205