MSNBC's Katy Tur was more than a little bemused on Thursday as she read Roger Stone's frantic plea for mercy, delivered at a court appearance that may send him to jail for violating a gag order by posting images on Instagram of the presiding judge with crosshairs next to her head. Stone was indicted in January on charges of obstruction, witness tampering, and making false statements.
"It doesn't sound like the Stone I've known," said Tur before reading the notorious political dirty trickster's statement.
"'I'm hurtfully sorry for my own stupidity. I'm kicking myself, but not as much as my wife is kicking me,'" she began.
"'My consulting business has dried up. I've exhausted my savings. I am being treated for emotional distress. I let myself down, my family down, my attorneys down. It was a momentarily lapse of judgment. I heard political commentators people have been talking about the likelihood that I'll be raped in prison. It's been a stressful situation. I'm having a hard time putting food on the table and making rent,'" Tur read.
"This is not the man I have heard speak about anything for the past, gosh I don't know, forever," she deadpanned. "Have you ever heard Roger Stone sound like that?"
"I have never heard Roger Stone sound like that," replied guest Anna Schecter, adding that Stone had been trying to fundraise for his defense fund with similar images on Instagram. "When I saw that I thought, 'whoa, maybe he went a little too far now.'"
Watch the video below.