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Roger Stone in recently revealed audio tapes insinuates that Judge Aileen Cannon, among other judges, is in former President Donald Trump's pocket, former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance said.
Stone, a Republican political consultant who was a Trump campaign adviser in 2015, was secretly recorded by progressive filmmaker Laura Windsor who was posing as a fan.
In the recorded audio, Stone says he and other Trump allies are prepared to use "lawyers, judges, technology" and "every lever we can," to see a Trump victory in November's presidential rematch election between Trump and President Joe Biden.
On Thursday, on her Substack page, Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance, the University of Alabama law professor highlighted an excerpt from the tapes in which Stone told Ally Sammarco, "I think the judge is on the verge of dismissing the charges against him in Florida."
Cannon, a Trump appointee, is the presiding judge in his classified documents case in Florida. Trump is due to stand trial after being indicted by special counsel Jack Smith on 40 federal charges, alleging that he illegally retained classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021 and obstructed the government's efforts to retrieve them. He has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
Cannon has faced criticism, largely along partisan lines, for delaying the trial and not setting a start date.
Vance, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, outlined a "legitimate" scenario in which an election lawyer, which Stone is not, would reach out to a judge regarding early poll closures, for example.
"But to the extent Stone is insinuating something more sinister, that they have judges in their pocket, that's entirely different, entirely wrong," she said.
She qualified her comments by adding: "Perhaps he's just making it up when he says Judge Cannon will soon dismiss the case against Donald Trump and that they have other judges available during the election," but given Stone's background, Vance warned "it would be foolish not to be concerned."
In 2019, Stone was found guilty of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress, and tampering with a witness. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison. In 2020, days before he was to report to prison, Trump commuted Stone's sentence.
Stone, in an email to Newsweek, said, "I insinuated nothing. I stated my OPINION based on reading the filings and rulings in the case."
He added that the recording was from March, and "in fact Judge Cannon subsequently specifically denied a motion by Trump's lawyers to dismiss the case. So my OPINION was incorrect..." he said in his late-June statement.
However, Stone then noted, "Judge Cannon did schedule and expanded a hearing into the legality of Special Counsel Smith appointment. In the event that she were to rule that Smith's appointment is illegal, and that ruling is upheld, the charges against Trump in both D.C. and Florida would be dismissed. So my OPINION could yet turn out to be correct."
Stone's comments refer to Judge Cannon's hearing tomorrow on Trump's motion arguing that Smith's appointment was unlawful.
He concluded his statement to Newsweek by stating that, "Ms. Vance's INSINUATION is baseless and irresponsible and defamatory but I attribute it to her Trump derangement Syndrome—she is deranged," adding, "If Vance has some evidence that my comments were and are based on anything other than my opinion she should produce it."
Newsweek reached out to Vance for comment via email on Thursday.
Updated 6/20/24 at 5:05 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include Stone's comment.
About the writer
Mandy Taheri is a Newsweek reporter based in Brooklyn. She joined Newsweek as a reporter in 2024. You can get ... Read more