Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office said Friday it would support a "narrowly-tailored" gag order for Roger Stone, President Trump's longtime adviser and friend who last month was indicted by Mueller's team on seven counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, witness tampering, and making false statements.
"The order would be supported by a finding that there is a substantial likelihood that extrajudicial comments by trial participants will undermine a fair trial," Mueller's team said. The statement cited recent television appearances in which Stone discussed "the merits of the charges, the nature of the evidence, the identity and credibility of trial witnesses, and the motives of the prosecution."
Stone objected to the proposal via his attorneys, arguing that public comment on politics and men's fashion is his job, so a gag order would interfere with his ability to earn a living. He also deployed the classic "I'm less famous than Kim Kardashian" defense.
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"While Roger Stone may be familiar to those who closely follow American politics, he is hardly ubiquitous in the larger landscape of popular consciousness," Stone's lawyers wrote. "An example of how limited and narrow his public presence is, is that Kim Kardashian has 59.5 million followers on Twitter. By contrast, Roger Stone has no Twitter account at all and, thus has no Twitter followers. On Instagram, Kim Kardashian has 126 million followers. Roger Stone’s Instagram following amounts to 39 thousand subscribers."
Stone is not on Twitter because the social network suspended his account in 2017. His Instagram account, where Stone is marketing "Roger Stone did nothing wrong" shirts, is indeed less popular than that of the most ubiquitous reality television star of the last decade.
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