Mueller seized "voluminous and complex" evidence from Stone

Federal investigators probing Roger Stone, the former Trump campaign official indicted last week in the Russia probe, have seized multiple hard drives containing years of communication records from cell phones and email accounts, the special counsel's office said Thursday.

Robert Mueller's prosecutors, in a new court filing, described the evidence as "voluminous and complex" in asking a judge to delay his trial to give them more time to sift through the seized devices.

The court papers said investigators grabbed hard drives containing several terabytes of information, including "FBI case reports, search warrant applications and results (e.g., Apple iCloud accounts and email accounts), bank and financial records, and the contents of numerous physical devices (e.g., cellular phones, computers, and hard drives.)."

The FBI is doing what it calls a "filter review" of the devices, setting aside any evidence that cannot be admissible in court because it is considered privileged.

Stone, 66, was arrested in a pre-dawn raid Friday at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a day after a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia indicted him on one count of "obstruction of proceeding," five counts of making false statements and one count of witness tampering.

A longtime Republican operative and self-described "dirty trickster," Stone has been under the microscope over his alleged connection to WikiLeaks and hacked Democratic emails released by the site during the 2016 presidential campaign. He has repeatedly denied any collusion with WikiLeaks.

Prosecutors argued for the delay under a federal statute that allows the constitutional right to a speedy trial to be waived when a case is "so unusual or so complex...that it is unreasonable to expect adequate preparation for pretrial proceedings or for the trial itself within the time limits established."