President Trump's longtime confidante Roger Stone was arrested last month, quickly pleaded not guilty to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's charges, and was released on bail. But after sharing an inflammatory post about his case's judge, Amy Berman Jackson, on Monday, he landed back in court to explain just what happened — not that he explained anything at all. Here are 5 ways Stone skirted the issue on Thursday.
1. Used a hashtag. On his way to the courtroom, Stone, seemingly having learned nothing, shared an Instagram with a caption including #RogerStoneDidNothingWrong.
2. Blamed a volunteer. Stone says he has "five or six volunteers" who send him pictures and he decides what to post, per HuffPost. He couldn't name which volunteer sent it to him, or whether it was via text or email.
3. Called it a mistake. In fact, Stone said that a whole bunch of times.
4. Blamed "enormous pressure." "I'm having a hard time putting food on the table and making rent," Stone said, adding that "political commentators" are apparently saying he'll be "raped in prison," per NBC News.
5. Said he had no idea what crosshairs even are. The post featured Jackson's face next to a set of crosshairs, and Stone said Thursday he "researched" the symbol and found it was "Celtic." Jackson then asked if it was an "occult symbol," to which Stone said "I don't know, your honor, I'm not into the occult." That whole explanation, as you can see below, was easily debunked.
To Roger Stone's claim that he did not recognize the image and believed it to be a Celtic symbol, here is another image from Stone's Instagram account from February 12 in which he writes, "I am in Mueller's cross hairs." pic.twitter.com/9QMmYLod3Y
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 21, 2019
