Roger Stone and Troy Smith of Slingshot News join me to discuss the Libertarian Party National Nominating Convention and the decision to nominate Donald Trump as their presidential candidate. We are also joined by Martha Bueno, a forward-thinking entrepreneur and political activist, to discuss Bitcoin and the case of Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Today, President Trump has decided to grant clemency to Ross on day one of his new term, which could mean the release of the Bitcoiner who was serving a sentence that could have put him behind bars for much longer than that amount of time. The Stone Zone is brought to you by Roger Stone and the Stone Zone Podcast Network. Roger Stone has served as a senior campaign aide to three Republican presidents and is a New York Times bestselling author and a longtime friend and advisor of President Donald Trump. As an outspoken libertarian, Stone has appeared on thousands of broadcasts, spoken at thousands of public events, and lectured before the prestigious Oxford Political Union and the Cambridge Union Society, and has lectured at countless venues. He is a political and cultural events, including the Oxford Union Society and Oxford University, where he has spoken at countless events and has been invited to speak to countless events, such as Oxford's prestigious Oxford University Press. He is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard, and a frequent contributor to conservative publications such as The Daily Beast, The Hill. and The Daily Caller, and the New York Review of New York Magazine, among other publications. The Stone is one of the most influential conservative publications in the world. In this episode, we discuss Bitcoin s most influential people in the Bitcoiners, and why Bitcoin should be free from the cluttered with Bitcoiners in the first place. We also discuss Bitcoin's impact on the political landscape, and what Bitcoiners should be doing in the 21st century, and how Bitcoiners can learn from Bitcoin s impact on American society. in the future. of the future of Bitcoin and Bitcoin s potential impact on society and much more. This episode is a must-listen to be heard wherever Bitcoiners are listening to Bitcoin and other digital media on the airwaves, and social media in this episode of The Stonezone to learn more about Bitcoin, Bitcoin, and Bitcoin's potential impact in the coming years. Subscribe to our new podcast.
00:04:07.800So, Martha, you saw that national convention, where I think President Trump did an extraordinarily valiant thing.
00:04:18.060It's sad how many Americans are unaware of the history and the story of Ross Ulbricht,
00:04:25.140I'm also unaware of why a commutation of his sentence at this point would be appropriate.
00:04:32.200Can you help illuminate those who are in the dark?
00:04:36.500Absolutely. So, Ross is a tragic story of a young American man who did something that he believed was right.
00:04:46.520He built a very libertarian free market website, which unfortunately, you know, what happens when people have some freedom is they tend to sell all sorts of goods and services.
00:04:59.840And sometimes those goods and services include drugs.
00:06:23.660And I believe that he has a lot of good left in him.
00:06:26.660And I hope to see him be able to achieve it.
00:06:30.300Based on the research I did, which I admit was cursory, but it appears that most of the drug sales were marijuana, which is now legal in more than half of the states.
00:06:41.100There is no evidence that he himself sold drugs.
00:06:46.020And as you point out, there was nobody here sex trafficked, nobody killed.
00:06:53.000Life in prison seems to be a little excessive given his transgressions.
00:06:59.300And he's now served 11 years, more than one would ever serve for the crime of selling marijuana, even if he himself had done it.
00:07:08.120All of this, of course, on the dark web, which I'm not terribly familiar with.
00:07:12.880Troy, do you have a question for Maria?
00:08:07.060You know, it's crazy to hear that our American justice system, which is supposed to be fair and balanced, is is punishing somebody for creating a Web site that, again, was using Bitcoin, which back at the time people didn't really understand Bitcoin and was basically selling cannabis.
00:08:30.840I mean, it was it was very much like an eBay style Web site.
00:08:34.120And I want to point out that this sentence is so wrong that El Chapo Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the largest drug traffickers, human traffickers, murdered people.
00:08:44.220I mean, one of the most evil people on the planet was only given one life sentence.
00:08:48.860And I don't think by that comparison, one can even, you know, look at Ross and say you deserve this.
00:08:54.260Ross has served far too long and he's been a model citizen in prison.
00:08:57.640He's not only helped people graduate in jail, he's he's led, you know, courses for people.
00:09:54.420Let me posit a theory here and that that that this may not really have been about Ross may not even really been about the Silk Road website, but it may have been about Bitcoin.
00:10:04.480Uh, it's kind of obvious to me that this administration would like to either heavily regulate or if they can actually outlaw Bitcoin as a form of currency.
00:10:16.240And of course, Donald Trump has just embraced Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, which I think is a good reason for many libertarians or those looking for an alternative monetary system to vote for him.
00:10:31.140Well, Roger, I think, uh, you know, it's about freedom, really.
00:10:35.600And, uh, I think the regulators, you know, they, they talk so much about, uh, the, the, oh, Bitcoin is unreliable.
00:10:43.220They say, oh, well, Bitcoin is, is, is not really backed by anything, but yet their entire system is backed by the exact same thing.
00:10:50.160So they want to tell us that, oh, it's this unregulated system.
00:10:54.380And we have Elizabeth Warren, even Senator Elizabeth Warren on CNBC after Trump announced that his campaign would be accepting Bitcoin donations.
00:11:02.320She's on CNBC, Roger, calling for Bitcoin to be eliminated because it funds, uh, terrorists.
00:11:08.180And, and you made the point, I believe on this show where you said, uh, well, are we going to ban dollars too?
00:11:13.440And I think that's what it comes down to Ross Ulbrich here.
00:11:15.900You know, uh, what is the really underlying crime?
00:11:18.460You know, we, Roger, we just went through a hush money trial in New York where there was no underlying crime for the former president.
00:11:25.220And, uh, it's a, it's a travesty that the, that, that they were able to kind of orchestrate this persecution, uh, without really a charge.
00:11:33.740And it seems to me, uh, uh, Martha, we can kick this one to you.
00:11:37.140It seems to me that Ross Ulbrich is being put through the exact same ringer, but there's no real underlying charge,
00:11:42.800but he really made the crime of operating as a free individual in the United States.
00:11:49.600And, you know, it's funny because it's actually the same court that Ross was, uh, convicted and tried it in.
00:11:54.920So Donald Trump is facing the exact same court that put Ross into a cage for double life sentence in 40 years for the crime of using a currency.
00:12:06.660Um, I think the real crime, according to the United States government is having introduced and been the first use case for Bitcoin in the United States.
00:12:14.820And, you know, like you said, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
00:12:17.740The, uh, dollar, should we go after the dollar?
00:12:22.060And as a matter of fact, that's the number one thing used to exchange for drugs is the United States dollar.
00:12:27.580So, I mean, if, if Bitcoin is such an evil currency, then so is the U S dollar and, um, you know, Bitcoin is a currency that is supposed to, um, free us from the government fiat.
00:12:42.320And I think that that is exactly why he is in that cage.
00:12:45.680And I hope to see not only Ross free, but Bitcoin free.
00:12:49.020And there are many other current, uh, people currently in jail for using Bitcoin.
00:12:53.780Uh, people like Roger Ver, people like I, uh, Ian Friedman.
00:12:57.660I mean, there are so many people that the United States government is now going after for Bitcoin.
00:13:03.600And, um, of course we know that they're trying to impose their own type of, uh, cryptocurrency, a CN, um, uh, the, um,
00:13:11.080CBNC, or, um, sorry, I'm, I'm, I just drew a blank, but, um, the United States government is also going after, uh, creating their own currency so that they can continue to inflate it and continue to force us to use money.
00:13:29.380Let me thank Martha Bueno for joining us today in the stone zone, uh, an eloquent, uh, presentation regarding why it is time for president Donald Trump to commute the sentence of Ross Albert.
00:13:41.080Thank you so much, Martha, for joining us, uh, on the show.
00:13:45.640Thank you for having me and free Ross.
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00:16:21.800If you're just tuning in, I'm Roger Stone, and this is The Stone Zone.
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00:16:41.940Joining me again in The Zone is my co-host, Troy Smith.
00:16:47.200Troy, the Trump trial in New York continues to dominate the news.
00:16:51.840I'm not an attorney, as I've said on this show many times, but I am perplexed by the jury instructions from Judge Juan Merchan, who basically says that since the government never established any underlying crime, which would be required for these financial transactions to be a felony, they had to mask or be related to some underlying crime.
00:17:17.500That is, interestingly, that is, interestingly, specifically not a Federal Election Commission campaign finance violation.
00:17:26.100We know that only because, well, the Federal Election Commission conducted an investigation.
00:17:31.440But the judge would not allow Bradley Smith, the former chairman, vice chairman, and I believe general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, a man who probably has the best understanding of the federal election law of anyone in the country, the judge would not allow him to testify.
00:17:49.380And therefore, the perception continues with the jury that Trump may have committed a federal election commission, a federal, pardon me, a campaign finance crime, which, of course, he didn't.
00:18:02.720Now, basically, as I understand it, what the judge is saying is, if the jurors, a majority of the jurors find that Trump committed any underlying crime, it doesn't even have to be the same one, well, that would result in a guilty verdict.
00:18:21.620No lawyer that I know thinks that this is a just result or that this trial will stand on appeal, but that's not really the point here, is it, Troy?
00:18:33.600Roger, no, it doesn't seem to be the point.
00:18:37.800We were one of the first to do it yesterday about Robert De Niro kind of acting like a fool outside of the Trump hush money trial.
00:18:44.780And I think him being there highlights exactly what you're saying.
00:18:47.820The point of this is not some kind of trial or to right some wrong or to point out some crime.
00:18:54.640The point of this trial is election interference.
00:18:56.940This was hammered by Trump's surrogates outside of the trial yesterday, which I think we're going to show here very shortly.
00:19:05.280But when we're talking about Robert De Niro, at a certain point, he says in his speech, Roger, that he delivered yesterday while he was being showered with booze from Trump supporters, that he is actually he was there on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign.
00:19:20.020He says it flat out and he actually says, I'm working with the Biden-Harris campaign.
00:19:25.580And so I was watching yesterday the press coverage of De Niro.
00:19:29.860And while I think he thought that he was going to march in there and be some kind of anti-Trump hero, he was really being destroyed by both sides of the political aisle.
00:19:39.100Because the idea that the Biden administration sent Robert De Niro, this 80-year-old individual who appears to be losing his mind, to the hush money trial, it proves, as you said on the show, that this is purely political.
00:19:57.620This is all about the 2024 election and the Biden administration's attempt to justify, I think, what they're planning.
00:20:05.320And we don't know exactly what they're planning because, you know, the election's not here yet.
00:20:10.300But I think that these cases, this one in particular, if they're able to land anything here, all it's going to do, Roger, is give the establishment, the same people who put Joe Biden in power in 2020, it's going to give them a license to do whatever they want.
00:20:25.780And it's going to give them carte blanche to go out and say, well, the president's been charged.
00:20:29.600And I'm interested to hear what you think, because I think what's eventually going to happen, if they do land any of these charges, I think his approval rating will actually go up.
00:20:41.460Well, I agree with you that the Biden-Harris campaign made a tactical error by producing not only Robert De Niro, who admitted that he was there at their behest,
00:20:51.320but also one of the January 6th Capitol Hill police officers to assault Donald Trump.
00:20:58.040That proves what we have been saying all along, that this is a politicized prosecution, and that is all political theater.
00:21:07.460But, Troy, I have one question for you that I'm a little unclear on.
00:22:41.360And I noticed this yesterday in some of the things that are being said outside of the Hush Money trial.
00:22:47.480I wanted to play some of these clips here because Stephen Chung hits this right on the head in his statement that he gave to the press yesterday.
00:22:55.360He's an advisor. I believe he's the communications director for the Trump campaign.
00:22:59.860And we want to play that clip of Stephen Chung outside of the courthouse yesterday.
00:24:05.080Most people do not understand that in a criminal trial at the state or federal level, the prosecution gets to put on their case as to why you should be convicted.
00:24:17.940Your attorneys, your defense attorneys, are allowed to cross-examine the government's witnesses.
00:24:24.780Then you're allowed to put on your defense.
00:24:26.980The government is allowed to cross-examine your witnesses, unless the witnesses, of course, are not allowed to testify by the judge.
00:24:35.180And then, of course, the people don't know this.
00:24:40.080The government gets the final shot at the ball.
00:24:42.660They get to essentially have a summation to answer everything put forward by the defense.
00:24:50.200This seems unfair, but that is our American system.
00:24:54.120President Donald Trump seemed to be surprised by it.
00:24:56.320I was surprised by it when I went to trial in D.C. on the trumped-up charges of Russian collusion, which, of course, I was not guilty of.
00:25:08.000Well, and, Roger, in this case, I wanted to ask you specifically because you dealt with media leaks in your case as well.
00:25:14.780And it's probably it's just like deja vu for you seeing these leaks happen in the Trump case as well.
00:25:20.280Yeah, I remember the weekend that CNN reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had seized all my bank records and my tax records from the IRS and my bank records from my bank.
00:25:33.880But yes, we were subjected to these leaks like Chinese water torture every single week.
00:25:50.420There was a new story about a new surprise witness or stone associate pulled to the grand jury.
00:25:57.060This is this is this is part of their strategy.
00:26:00.040So and I think this is key while they want to gag Trump.
00:26:13.420I think they have successfully gagged him in the D.C. trial of election interference brought by Jack Smith.
00:26:21.940They are constantly leaking negative, many times inaccurate information about you to their colleagues in the fake news media.
00:26:33.820And of course, no one else is is gagged but you.
00:26:38.180So CNN and MSNBC and The New York Times, they're allowed to pile on.
00:26:43.960They can say anything they want, but you're not allowed to respond to defend yourself.
00:26:48.480Clearly unconstitutional, but unfortunately, has never made that question has never made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
00:26:56.280I challenged the gag order in my case, and it was basically sat on for eight months by the D.C. appeals court and then rejected on procedural grounds,
00:27:09.640saying that I hadn't asked the judge in my case who had imposed the gag order to lift the gag order.
00:27:16.560And therefore, my motion, my my mandamus was not ripe for consideration.
00:27:23.360I sustained huge public damage during that entire time.
00:27:27.840To this day, people on X will keep calling me a Russian traitor.
00:27:32.020They obviously didn't follow my case because the government never produced any evidence of either Russian collusion or even WikiLeaks collaboration.
00:27:40.800And it wasn't until BuzzFeed, of all people, sued the U.S. Department of Justice to force the release of the entire final report by Robert Mueller,
00:27:54.720where the entire section on me had been redacted, that Mueller himself admitted that he'd found no evidence of Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration,
00:28:04.840or for that matter, any other crime on my part.
00:28:08.800I think most people know that my prosecution was about pressuring me into testifying falsely against Donald Trump, something I refused to do.
00:28:18.800Well, Roger, and it's just it's important to point out because you've been through this ringer.
00:28:23.440You've seen this before. And I wanted to get your opinion.
00:28:26.400You know, the the Supreme we talked a little bit about it yesterday.
00:28:29.400The pressure campaign that's being mounted by MSNBC, CNN and others against the Supreme Court.
00:28:37.960You know, it would seem to me, based on your case and based on Trump's case and others, that the gag order is an essential piece of of how the deep state comes after you.
00:28:48.340It's an essential piece of how the government manipulates reality in order to achieve its goal of persecuting its enemies politically.
00:28:58.000So my question to you is, do you think that this pressure campaign is an indication that we may have an opportunity here before the next election to see gag orders ruled unconstitutionally, as they really should be?
00:29:11.120Well, somebody has to get a gag order question before the court.
00:29:14.980And of course, the court has to agree to hear it.
00:29:20.220The same people who are howling for Justice Alito to recuse himself from any matter pertaining to Donald Trump or the January 6th matter are because his wife, evidently, based on what I read, flew an upside down flag at their beach house, which we're not even sure had a political connotation.
00:29:51.880Those same people are the ones who see nothing wrong with Judge Merchant giving a campaign contribution to Joe Biden or having a daughter who is a Democrat fundraising consultant and whose clients include Biden and Harris.
00:30:07.760And she has used this trial, which her which her father is presiding over to to to as the focal point for her fundraising.
00:30:21.440Seems to me that that is a serious monetary financial conflict of interest.
00:30:26.580But of course, the folks who want Alito and for that matter, Clarence Thomas to step down, well, they have no problem with the conduct of Judge Merchant and his daughter.
00:31:03.380I don't think that and I even see him attacked within Republican circles to a certain extent, people bashing them.
00:31:09.500And I say it's important because the president, as you state, is gagged.
00:31:13.160He's not allowed to speak about these issues.
00:31:15.480And for people of prominence, especially within Republican politics, to come and show their support for the former president, I think is a great thing.
00:31:35.780But if it's unity on the Democrat side or amongst establishment Republicans who want to do damage to the MAGA movement and make sure that it has no influence in Republican politics, it's terrible.
00:53:14.300But we certainly, we certainly want your vote.
00:53:18.240I do think the Libertarian Party, unfortunately, may have now be moving into complete irrelevance.
00:53:25.100I mean, I see them actually getting the lowest vote they've ever gotten with this candidate.
00:53:31.280And anyone who is a Libertarian will recognize that Donald Trump is the only president in modern
00:53:37.880times to not only not start any new foreign wars, but to bring many of our men and women
00:53:43.960in uniform home to the United States without having the countries they're leaving collapse
00:53:49.220behind them into the hands of our enemies.
00:53:52.220That alone, that is a Libertarian credential, particularly when you consider that during the presidency, there were those in his administration and those in the permanent power structure pushing
00:54:05.660him relentlessly towards war, something that he resisted.
00:54:09.680Remember a great story he told about a drone was shot down and the those of the Pentagon wanted