Stone cohort held in contempt for refusing to testify in probe

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has found a witness in contempt for refusing to testify before the grand jury hearing evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

U.S. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell made the ruling Friday after a sealed hearing to discuss Andrew Miller’s refusal to appear before the grand jury. Miller is a former aide to longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone.

Miller’s lawyer Paul Kamenar said after the hearing that Miller was “held in contempt, which we asked him to be in order for us to appeal the judge’s decision to the court of appeals.”

Howell stayed her order while Miller’s legal team appeals the judge’s decision.

Miller lost a court battle this month to quash a subpoena, after Howell issued a 93-page opinion saying Miller must testify before the grand jury.

Separately, another Stone associate, Randy Credico, said Friday that he had received a subpoena to testify before the grand jury Sept. 7 and did not plan to fight it. Stone has claimed that in 2016 Credico was a conduit to Julian Assange, founder of the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.

A hearing transcript from June 18 shows Miller was subpoenaed for information about Stone as well as key figures in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee, and the public release of Democrats’ emails during the campaign. According to that transcript, the subpoena seeks information from Miller about WikiLeaks and Assange. WikiLeaks published large volumes of hacked Democrats’ emails during the campaign.

The subpoena also seeks information about Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. Investigators say both were online fronts invented by Russian intelligence operatives to spread the hacked documents. DCLeaks was a website that posted hacked emails of current and former U.S. officials and political aides; Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be a Romanian hacker.