Obama-appointed judge overseeing Roger Stone trial refuses to strike anti-Trumper from jury pool

Obama-appointed judge overseeing Roger Stone trial refuses to strike anti-Trumper from jury pool
Amy Berman Jackson

If you weren’t convinced that Trump confidant Roger Stone got the bum’s rush when FBI agents showed up at his Florida home at 6 o’clock in the morning in full combat regalia and with rifles drawn, then perhaps this will cinch it for you.

The judge presiding over Stone’s trial, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, rejected a request from defense counsel on Tuesday to remove a potential juror whose husband works in the Justice Department unit involved in the Russia investigation. The juror herself, moreover, served as a press secretary in the Office of Management and Budget during the presidency of Barack Obama. And if that’s not enough, the woman openly admitted during voir dire to harboring negative views of President Donald Trump.

At the beginning of jury selection, Jackson, an Obama appointee, said she would not remove prospective jurors solely on the basis of their working or having worked for the federal government or because of their views of Trump.

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Stone and his lawyers have argued from the outset that their client cannot get a fair trial in Washington, D.C., a staunch liberal enclave. Yet requests for a change of venue have been denied.

Berman Jackson, who also presided over the the sham Manafort case, has taken a hard line with respect to Stone ever since a grand jury handed down an indictment on Jan. 24. In May, she ordered federal prosecutors to turn over any unredacted sections of the Mueller’s report report that dealt with Stone “and/or ‘the dissemination of hacked materials’” that were leaked during the 2016 presidential campaign to the detriment of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The juror that defense counsel sought to strike from the pool Tuesday acknowledged following developments in the special counsel’s investigation. But Jackson said that she accepted the potential juror’s claim that she did not have an opinion of the Stone case.

“She said credibly she doesn’t have an opinion on this case,” Jackson said.

Welcome to justice as defined by the Left.

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