President Trump on Thursday ripped into the forewoman of the jury that convicted his longtime confidant Roger Stone last November, asserting that she had an anti-Trump bias.
“It’s my strong opinion that the forewoman of the jury, the woman who was in charge of the jury is totally tainted. When you take a look, how can you have a person like this? She was a anti-Trump activist. can you imagine this?” he said, referring to Tomeka Hart.
He said her social media posts displayed a bias and suggested she should not have been allowed to sit on the Stone jury.
“She had a horrible social media account. The things she said on the account were unbelievable,” he continued.
Hart, a former board member for Memphis City Schools, had criticized Trump and his supporters and praised the prosecutors in the Stone case on social media.
“I want to stand up for Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed, Michael Marando, and Jonathan Kravis — the prosecutors on the Roger Stone trial,” Hart wrote about the four prosecutors who quit after Attorney General William Barr reversed their sentencing recommendation.
She had also posted other statements that were critical of the president, and ran for a House seat in the 9th Congressional District of Tennessee in 2012 as a Democrat.
Trump also said that Stone had “a very good chance of exoneration” if he wins his bid for a new trial and is cleared — but stopped short of committing to a pardon for the self-described dirty trickster.
“He’s become a big part of the news. I’m following this very closely. I want to see this play out til its fullest [but] Roger has a very good chance at exoneration,” the president said in his first remarks on Stone’s sentencing while speaking to graduates of a prison reentry program in Las Vegas.
“I’m going to let this play out,” he said, after ripping James Comey, Hillary Clinton and other people during a digression from his commencement address.
“I want to let the fake news media know. I just want to let them know … I’m going to watch the process and watch it very closely but at some point I’m going to make a determination. But Roger Stone was not treated fairly,” he told the 29 graduates of the HOPE for Prisoners Graduation at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The president then described his affection for Stone, who was sentenced earlier Thursday to 40 months in federal prison, but who has also asked Jackson to grant him a new trial.
“Roger’s definitely a character. Everybody knows Roger and most people like him. Some people probably don’t but I do and I always have. He’s a smart guy. He’s a little different, but those are sometimes the most interesting, but he’s a good person,” he said before accusing the jury forewoman of bias.
The president also ripped a number of familiar targets, including Comey, Clinton, former FBI director Andrew McCabe and others.
“We had a lot of dirty cops. The FBI is phenomenal. I love the FBI. But the people at the top are dirty cops,” he said.
He said that the witness tampering charge against Stone, one of seven he was convicted of, was bogus because the alleged victim, Stone associate Randy Credico, said he never felt threatened.
“It’s not like the tampering I see when you watch a movie on television,” he said, adding that Stone didn’t point a gun at anyone.
“Maybe there was tampering and maybe there wasn’t. But I can tell you there was tremendous lying and leaking,” he said.
“They say he lied but other people lied too. Just to mention, Comey lied, McCabe lied, Lisa Page lied, her lover, Peter Strzok, lied. You don’t know who these people are? Just trust me,” he said, referring to the two former FBI employees who showed an anti-Trump bias in their text messages.
He then attacked the former first lady over her missing emails.
“Hillary Clinton leaked more classified documents, I believe, than any human being in the United States of America,” the president said.
