Special Counsel Robert Mueller formally is rejecting Roger Stone's accusation his office tipped off CNN prior to Stone's arrest.
CNN has explained it was able to get exclusive video of the early morning FBI raid due to reporters paying attention to a series of events suggesting charges against Stone were imminent.
In a court filing Friday, Mueller prosecutors said Stone’s sealed indictment was ordered to be automatically unsealed upon Stone’s arrest on charges of lying to congressional investigators and intimidating a witness. In accordance with that order, Mueller’s office notified reporters of the indictment and posted it on the office’s website shortly after the FBI raided Stone’s South Florida home and took him into custody just after 6 a.m. on Jan. 25, prosecutors said.
“The government’s public release of the indictment shortly after the defendant’s arrest was consistent with the order sealing the indictment,” Mueller attorneys and lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington argued in their submission Friday.
“The order does not state, as many unsealing orders do, that the indictment shall remain sealed until further order of the Court. Rather, the order conditioned the unsealing of the indictment on one event: the defendant’s arrest,” prosecutors wrote.
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“The Special Counsel’s Office is aware of no information indicating that reporters were given any advance knowledge of a possible indictment from the Special Counsel’s Office,” prosecutors wrote in a footnote to their Friday filing.
Mueller rebuffs Roger Stone’s claims that he tipped off CNN (Politico)