President Donald Trump’s long time ally Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison. However, on the way back to Washington following his India visit, Trump attacked the jury forewoman on social media in another rant and accused her of bias against his associate.
Politicalflare reports that Trump took to Twitter to once again air his dislike of the verdict given to Stone, who was charged for obstruction of legal proceedings, witness tampering, and false statements to Congress. The President targeted jury forewoman Tomeka Hart in his tweet. “There has rarely been a juror so tainted as the forewoman in the Roger Stone case. Look at her background. She never revealed her hatred of “Trump” and Stone. She was totally biased, as is the judge. Roger wasn’t even working on my campaign. Miscarriage of justice. Sad to watch!” tweeted Trump.
Contrary to Trump’s claim that Stone never worked on his campaign, he did.
Prior to Trump’s twitter attacks, Hart had already spoken up about the matter two weeks before, sharing her thoughts alongside fellow juror Seth Cousins, who wrote an op-ed piece. Hart echoed Cousins’ sentiments regarding the decision to plead Stone guilty. Hart quoted, “We did not convict Stone based on his political beliefs or his expression of those beliefs. We did not convict him of being intemperate or acting boorishly. We convicted him for obstructing a congressional investigation, of lying in five specific ways during his sworn congressional testimony and of tampering with a witness in that investigation.” Hart also mentioned the four prosecutors who chose to resign as the response to speculation that the DOJ was interfering with their recommended sentencing for Stone.
Meanwhile, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who gave out the sentence to Stone, fired back at Trump’s attacks as well as the attacks from the conservative, Pro-Trump media such as Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and InfoWars’ Alex Jones. Jackson said that these attacks were part of the intimidation tactics used in Stone’s case. Recalling Trump’s Twitter attacks towards Hart and the commentaries from Jones and Carlson, Jackson addressed that making the identities of the jurors public would bring them in harm’s way.
“In a highly publicized political climate, the risk of harassment and intimidation of any juror is extremely high,” said Jackson. She also pointed out that even if the judges who take on the cases are voluntary, jurors do not have that option and must be respected by the public.