A federal judge warned Tuesday she may revoke Roger Stone's release on bond and send him to jail pending trial over a toxic Instagram post he made about her.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the embattled confidant of President Donald Trump to appear in her Washington, D.C., courtroom Thursday and "show cause" for how a since-deleted photo he put up of her didn't violate a gag order she has issued in his criminal case.
If Stone fails to give a decent explanation, Jackson warned his "conditions of release" could be "modified or revoked."
Stone is currently free on $250,000 bond. If he fails to convince Jackson, Stone may have to await his trial behind bars.
Reached by the New York Daily News, Stone uncharacteristically declined to comment other than to say he would "be present for the hearing as ordered."
The hearing is set for Thursday afternoon.
Stone _ who has been indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation over his 2016 contacts with WikiLeaks _ posted a picture Monday of Jackson's face next to what appeared to be a crosshairs symbol.
Amid intense media coverage, the longtime friend and adviser to Trump deleted the photo and claimed he didn't notice the rifle scope when he pulled the picture from the internet.
Minutes later, the 66-year-old self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" of politics posted another version of the photo that cropped out the crosshairs. He still included a caption that derided Jackson as an "Obama appointed" partisan and shill for Mueller.
However, Stone eventually deleted that photo as well and issued a formal "notice of apology" to Jackson, in which he said he was "humbly" sorry for the social media posts.
Stone has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, which include lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
Jackson issued a gag order Friday that stipulated Stone refrain from making any pretrial public statements that could pose a "substantial likelihood of material prejudices" to his case.
Before deleting his posts, Stone insisted to the Daily News on Monday that his questionable social media activities were not in violation of Jackson's gag order.
"My criticism is of the manner in which my case was mandated before a specific judge rather than randomly," Stone said. "There can be no misinterpretation since I didn't notice the symbol in the corner."
Some legal scholars disagreed vehemently.
"Stone's pretrial release should be revoked," tweeted Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University. "His crosshairs on the presiding judge amount to a call for her assassination. He should be jailed immediately."
