Prosecutors: No need to prove Russian plot to charge Stone for obstruction

Federal prosecutors argued on Friday that special advocate Robert Mueller did not need to prove the plot between the Russian government and the Trump campaign to show that Roger Stone, a longtime ally with Trump, had prevented the congressional inquiry into the case.

"To establish the guilt of the accused of the alleged crimes, it is not necessary that the government proves the existence of a conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere in it." US presidential election, "Mueller said alongside the US attorney in Washington. DC, wrote in response to the filings that Stone submitted on March 28th.

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This argument has been the subject of controversy over the last few weeks as a result of Attorney General Bill Barr's suggestion that the evidence gathered by Mueller involving President Donald Trump for multiple efforts to thwart his investigation was vain, in part because Mueller has not established the existence of a criminal. conspiracy.

"The evidence now suggests that the charges against him were false and that he knew they were false," Barr said Wednesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee, noting that the steps taken by the president to counter the investigation might have been justified by his frustration of having been falsely. linked to the demands of his campaign conspired with the Russian government. "This is not a corrupt motive to replace an independent lawyer," he said.

Democrats and some legal experts have strongly disputed Barr's argument, suggesting that Trump's actions to undermine the investigation could have prevented the discovery of evidence of a conspiracy or that He might have tried to conceal the discovery of other related crimes – such as allegations he ordered the payment of a sum of money to two women who accused him of having had extramarital affairs, which came out of Mueller's investigation. Several of Trump's closest allies, including Stone, have also been charged with crimes in the Mueller investigation.

But Barr argued that without evidence of a plot – the foundation of Mueller's probe – Trump's conduct must be viewed from a different angle, particularly because as president, he had the inherent power to dismiss Mueller and even, in Barr's eyes, an investigation which he considers unjust and prejudicial to his ability to govern.

Stone had pointed out these arguments to undermine Mueller's lawsuits against him, but prosecutors said that these arguments were both irrelevant – because they concerned only the president – and misinterpreted.

"The indictment alleges, and the evidence admitted at trial will show that after the 2016 US presidential election, the [House and Senate Intelligence Committees]and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have all opened or announced investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 US presidential election, "wrote the prosecutor. The accused acted corruptly to obstruct these investigations. And the actions of the accused were likely to influence the investigations. That's all the law requires. "

The argument of the US lawyer and Mueller's team essentially contradicts a recent statement made Thursday by Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. "A case of obstruction where there is no evidence of an underlying crime is debatable, if you add nothing that is really obstructed, there will be no case," tweeted Giuliani.

The series of briefs posted Friday evening were filed by Washington DC lawyer Jessie Liu, as well as by two lawyers who worked with Mueller's team, Adam Jed and Aaron Zelinsky. They responded to Stone's multiple efforts to obtain the dismissal of his indictment, to seek access to Mueller's full report, to claim that he was subject to selective prosecution and to make argue that Mueller's appointment and his sources of funding were inappropriate.

In support of his argument to classify the case against him, Stone referred to a 19-page memo written by Barr and forwarded to officials of the Department of Justice as he went to court. found outside the government. At the time, Barr had argued for a much more restrictive definition of obstruction crimes when they were related to the president. But Mueller's team said that Stone had misinterpreted Barr's memo.

"The memorandum does not claim that any obstruction statute should be interpreted as requiring the evidence of the crime that gave rise to the investigation that was impeded," they wrote.

Prosecutors also challenged Stone's efforts to transfer the case to his current judge, Amy Berman Jackson, who presided over the guilty plea and conviction of former Trump campaign president Paul Manafort. Berman Jackson is also overseeing the pending case against a dozen Russian hackers indicted by Mueller – and Stone's file was returned to him because prosecutors had considered him bound.

Stone argued that his case was unrelated, especially since Mueller's team never accused any American of conspiracy as part of the piracy operation. Prosecutors said, however, that this argument was also wrong, because the hacking case stemmed from "joint search warrants", such as those that helped to indict Stone.

Therefore, they write, Stone's accusation "is part of the same event or the same alleged criminal transaction, which is the applicable legal test".

Stone argued separately that Mueller's investigation was invalid and should be dismissed as it was part of a larger investigation targeting Trump. His lawyers argued that it was fundamentally wrong to divide executive power by inviting the Department of Justice to investigate, essentially, his boss.

Prosecutors also argued that Stone was deceived because "the investigation was not specific to the president" and that the indictment itself related to the Stone's conduct, not Trump's. However, prosecutors went further by pointing out that there was a power of inquiry over the president, citing Richard Nixon's investigation.

"The mere fact of investigating a president, his campaign or other people who have worked with him does not raise such difficulties – especially when the investigator remains accountable to the Attorney General. ", they wrote.

"If Article II prevented any investigation of a president or his campaign while he was in office, the government could not keep any evidence until the memories were fresh and documents were available. Nor does it seem that the government can conduct an investigation alleged wrongdoing, "added the prosecutors.

In January, Stone was accused of interfering with the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into Russia's interferences in the 2016 elections, launched in early 2017, just after taking office in January. Trump. He was also charged with making five false statements to the committee and a falsification of witnesses.

The charges related to his testimony regarding efforts to contact WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Stone announced in the summer of 2016 that Wikileaks appeared to have an information cache that could harm Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton at the time and seemed to have some idea of ​​when it was published. He has since denied having advanced knowledge. Assange has recently been indicted on a charge of unrelated cybercrime and fighting extradition to the United States in London.

Stone pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. The flamboyant political agent has been under fire in recent months.