Article snippet: During a heated hearing on Thursday, the federal judge presiding over MORE’s criminal case banned the longtime Trump associate from saying anything publicly about his case. The ruling, harsher than the limited gag order U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued last week, comes after Stone posted an inflammatory photo of the judge on his Instagram account over the weekend. Before Jackson ruled from the bench, Stone took the stand to beg for forgiveness. "I abused the order for which I'm heartfully sorry," he said. "I'm kicking myself over my own stupidity." Stone admitted on the stand that he had posted the image of Jackson, which appeared to have the crosshairs of a rifle scope behind her head. In interviews after the post Stone claimed the symbol was part of a logo. “How hard was it to come up with a photo that didn’t have crosshairs in the corner?” Jackson asked him in court. The photo, which was shared on Sunday and then quickly deleted, was accompanied by a critique of Jackson, which Stone admitted in court he wrote. In the post, he called special counsel MORE prior to his conviction. Stone tried to convince Jackson during the hearing that the photo was selected by one of his volunteers, that he never meant for it to be viewed as a threat against her and that he honestly did not believe the symbol in the corner was crosshairs. “I can’t rationalize my thinking because I wasn’t thinking and that’s my own fault,” he said. But Jackson wasn’t buying i... Link to the full article to read more