Far-right blogger Mike Cernovich demanded access to the questionnaire answers of the jury foreperson in the Roger Stone prosecution, a court filing revealed on Friday shows.
Cernovich asked U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to allow him to join the case as an intervenor in order to obtain access to the questionnaire answers. She has not yet ruled on his request.
Cernovich apparently wished to follow up on whatever notoriety he gained from publicizing the juror’s Twitter account, by demanding access to her questionnaire answers.
The request first came on Feb. 20, with the pizzagate propagator and self-described “constitutional law scholar” saying that the foreperson’s “public conduct has raised grave constitutional concerns regarding the fairness of the jury trial in the instant matter.”
The President and his allies have tried to discredit the guilty verdict of Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, by claiming that the jury foreperson was biased due to social media posts and an earlier attempt she had made to run for office as a Democrat. The allegation ignores the fact that the juror disclosed her political affiliations during jury selection, as required, and that partisan political beliefs do not disqualify one from serving on a jury.
Cernovich played a key, early role in propagating the allegations against the juror. He first publicized tweets that the foreperson had made, and angrily tweeted about her affiliation with the Democratic Party; all of which later made it onto Fox News.
President Trump then jumped on the allegation of “bias,” attacking the foreperson on Twitter by citing Fox News reports about the juror.
In the filing, Cernovich argues that “the public has a constitutional right to know whether public trials are being conducted consistently with constitutional requirements. ”
“Mr. Cernovich’s vigorous and conscientious journalism has raised significant questions as to whether Mr. Stone received a fair jury trial,” the right-wing provocateur added about himself.
The bid for document access is taking place after Judge Berman Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months behind bars on charges of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress.
Stone pushed for a retrial by claiming that the jury foreperson was biased. Judge Berman Jackson held a hearing on Wednesday in which she hauled in jurors on the case, showing that Stone’s claims were groundless.
Cernovich concluded in an affidavit attached to the filing that he had not consulted with anyone in making the request.
“I have not coordinated this filing with any other party, including the United
States,” the filing reads.
Read the filing here:
