Trump Advisor Roger Stone Sues to Block Congressional Subpoena
WASHINGTON — Political consultant Roger Stone is suing a congressional committee that wants information about whether he encouraged the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
Stone seeks a court order to block the House committee’s subpoena of his phone records.
He denies any role in helping supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol building as they tried to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results. Stone was a consultant for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
He argues in his lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the subpoena violates his privacy. He says it is too broad to be justified under his First and Fourth Amendment rights.
“The data sought is not pertinent to the investigation and sweeps up privileged communications between Stone and clergy and Stone and his respective attorneys,” the lawsuit says.
The subpoena seeks IP addresses, a list of contacts, call session times and related metadata.
The lawsuit names as defendants lawmakers who are leading the investigation, such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. It also names AT&T Mobility Inc., the telecommunications company that holds Stone’s phone records.
He says the Select Committee is hiding its true motives, namely that Democrats want information about their political opponents. Some of the data would list Stone’s contacts among top Republicans.
“He remains a private citizen who has never served in government,” the lawsuit says. “He has reasonable expectations of privacy and is under no required record keeping regulations like government officials or government employees.”
Stone is one of about 20 of Trump’s advisors who are suing to block the committee’s investigation of them. So far, none have succeeded.
Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison in February 2020 for making false statements, obstruction and witness tampering during a special counsel investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. Trump later gave Stone a full pardon.
Tom can be reached at [email protected].
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