Roger Stone, an ally of Donald Trump, has rejected the Jan. 6 committee subpoena and will invoke his Fifth Amendment rights, declining to testify before the House January 6 commission, said his lawyer, Grant J. Smith.
“In response to the recently served subpoena from the Select Committee, Mr. Stone has directed me to advise you that, as further discussed below, pursuant to the rights afforded him by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, he declines to be deposed or produce documents,” Stone’s attorney wrote to the committee.
The letter states that there is no doubt that the Fifth Amendment gives Stone a constitutional right to refuse to answer questions.
Smith concluded the request is too “wide-ranging to be deemed anything other than a fishing expedition,” as the Select Committee’s demand for documents is “overreaching.”
“Moreover, responding to the extensive requests requires the preparation of a detailed index and log describing the contents of the production, which in and of itself would be protected from disclosure by the U.S. Constitution. Thus given that Mr. Stone has been characterized in the press as under investigation by the DOJ and the FBI, responding to the document demand, which is plainly designed to elicit information about the existence of potentially incriminating evidence, would amount to a testimonial act, defeating the privilege being asserted,” the letter stated.
There was also a part in the letter which said that the committee’s goal of examining events leading up to the January 6th riot “falsely implies that the exercise of First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances caused the illegal acts of January 6.”
As the panel announced it believes he “helped or had knowledge of the planning and financing of the rallies in D.C. and the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol,” Stone was one of five new witnesses recently subpoenaed by Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson’s committee.
Stone said that he had a premonition not to attend President Trump’s speech.
“I had a feeling. I had an intuition I just did not want to go. I think that God was giving me a signal, I didn’t go,” Stone said, saying that he instead watched Trump’s speech on the Ellipse from a block away at the Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Let me be as clear as I possibly can. Any claim, or assertion, or implication that I either knew about or I was involved in any way in the illegal activities of the Capitol on January 6 is categorically false. But if you read their subpoena… they’re trying to say that my remarks at two legally permitted rallies the day before are the cause of the break-in,” Stone said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has determined that there is “scant evidence” of an organized conspiracy to invade the Capitol.
“Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases. Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages,” a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said.
Rep. Thompson said that he believed Stone “helped or had knowledge of the planning and financing” of the January 6 unrest.
“We believe the witnesses we subpoenaed today have relevant information, and we expect them to cooperate fully with our effort to get answers for the American people about the violence of January 6th,” Thompson said.