Mark Penn lays out a powerful case that Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is hearing the cases of both Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, and who just imposed a gag order on Stone (but not the prosecution or media that have been vilifying him) must recuse herself from Stone's case. His first reason that Judge Jackson must recuse herself is that she should never have been assigned the case in the first place.  It was not a random selection process, the norm for assigning cases. [T]he defendant is correct that Mueller did use a technicality to draw this judge — claiming that the Stone and the Manafort cases were parts of the same case.  It's obvious that they are not, and that there are absolutely no overlapping facts in the case of Manafort's unreported lobbying and the issues surrounding Stone's testimony to Congress. That is not Judge Jackson's responsibility, but the second reason is: [I]n slapping a gag order on...(Read Full Post)