Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s longtime political adviser, reportedly posted and then deleted an inflammatory online call that former CIA Director John Brennan be “hung” for treason.
Stone, 66, is under a gag order as he awaits federal trial on charges related to his work on Trump’s 2016 campaign. He was sternly reprimanded by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in February for a social media post that featured the judge’s face with crosshairs.
Stone faces trial in November on charges that include lying to Congress, obstructing justice and witness tampering for activities linked to the Trump campaign.
The Brennan Instagram story was first reported on Twitter Sunday morning by CNN’s Brian Stelter. CNN security analyst Sam Vinograd soon wondered in a tweet why the Brennan photo with comment hadn’t been taken down 55 minutes after it was posted.
Several screen shots of the reported post on Twitter — and reported by Newsweek — feature a photo of Brennan with the message: “This psycho must be charged, tried, convicted — and hung for treason.”
Vinograd tweeted an update with a message from Instagram saying the post had been removed because it “violated our Community Guidelines.” The message added: “We have let rogerjstonejr know their photo has been removed, but not who reported it.”
Stone posted a similar message on his Instagram account at rogerjstonejr last week, but he didn’t say Brennan should be hanged. The earlier post, seen below, reads: “Wanted for TREASON CIA Director John Brennan.” Stone’s difficult to decipher comments accompanying the image called Brennan a “criminal psychopath.”
That post remained up as of Sunday night.
The judge in Stone’s upcoming trial issued a gag order in February as a condition of his $250,000 bail, barring him from speaking publicly or on social media about his case or links to his case.
After the judge reprimanded Stone for his crosshairs post, she warned an apologetic Stone: “I’m not giving you another chance. I have serious doubts about whether you have learned any lesson at all.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether Stone would face admonishment for his latest post.
Stone was likely upset Friday after prosecutors shot down his claim in court that Russia had nothing to do with hacking Democratic Party emails during the presidential campaign, as U.S. intelligence officials have determined. Federal search warrant requests indicate that Stone was in touch with hackers.
Neither Stone nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment.