He commutes Stone’s prison sentence….
(Even Trump trusty Atty Gen supported Stone going to0 jail)
That after Stone was convicted of lying to the Mueller people and the House numerous times and badgering potential witnesses…..
Donald Trump takes care of fellow lying crook’s…
He does it in public and doesn’t give a shit….
Trump is spitting on Robert Mueller, the FBI, Congress and the Law….
Thru the Office of the Presidency he has gone around applying the law to actions of those who broke the law, but where his supporters….
For just about anyone else?
This WOULD go down as repeated obstructions of justice…
President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison sentence of longtime adviser Roger Stone, who was found guilty of seeking to thwart congressional and FBI investigations into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Stone, 67, was sentenced in February to three years and four months in prison after a trial late last year where a jury found him guilty on all seven felony charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The White House said in a statement: “Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency commuting the unjust sentence of Roger Stone, Jr,” calling Stone “a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years.”
Trump acted just after a federal appeals court panel denied a last-ditch bid by Stone to delay an order for him to surrender at a federal prison in Jesup, Ga. next Tuesday. Stone claimed he suffered from health conditions that put him at serious risk of dying if he went to that prison, which is experiencing a coronavirus outbreak.
Trump’s move to protect a close ally from charges stemming from a probe that also included an investigation of Trump’s own conduct is certain to set off explosive recriminations in the Democratically controlled House, where leaders have long said clemency for Trump’s inner circle would amount to obstruction of justice. It also comes despite Attorney General Bill Barr’s declaration that Stone’s prosecution was “righteous” and that his sentence was fair.
“Stone repeatedly lied to the House Intelligence Committee under oath and threatened a witness, all to cover up an effort by President Trump and his campaign to secretly communicate with Wikileaks and exploit its release of Russian-hacked emails targeting his opponent,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement. “With this commutation, Trump makes clear that there are two systems of justice in America: one for his criminal friends, and one for everyone else.”
Trump’s involvement in the case prior to Friday — criticizing the initial sentence proposed by prosecutors, attacking the judge and jury in the case — had already prompted howls of outrage from Democrats, accusations of self-dealing and warnings from Justice Department veterans about an effort to shatter the justice system’s independence to benefit the president.
The White House’s statement Friday did not explicitly mention that six of the seven felonies Stone was convicted of pertained solely to efforts to deceive Congress. The official explanation of the commutation also asserted that Stone would never have been prosecuted if Mueller had not been appointed….
…
For Trump, a commutation serves two additional purposes: protecting a close political ally who was deeply tied to his campaign’s effort to promote WikiLeaks’ hacked emails from the Clinton campaign and casting doubt on the subsequent investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election by Mueller. Trump has assailed the probe since its May 2017 onset, and now he’s poised to absolve the allies who defended him throughout it.
Stone’s case, though, presented a complicated calculus. Many in Trump’s inner circle have no love for the longtime political provocateur, and Stone aggravated matters throughout his legal process, at one point posting incendiary social media posts about the judge, earning a stiff gag order for months
image….T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
Quid pro quo…
Trump let’s Stone go,Stone keeps his mouth shut.
And the Republicans want “law and order” and to keep
Making America Great Again!
They don’t give a damn about “law and order.”
Unless it’s some minorities demonstrating.Drives them nuts.
Gee I wonder why?
When the constitution was being written up, I think it was James Madison who argued that if a President pardoned someone who was convicted for protecting the President, then that President would be impeached. Obviously, Madison could not have imagined the corruption of the GOP in 2020.
The Constitution is wrong on this. Presidents should not be allowed to make ANY pardons in my opinion. Any Bill Clinton got away with what should have been a crime in pardoning Marc Rich.
I thought Rich’s pardon was reprehensible too.
I would note thought that Rich was pardoned for aTax Evasion conviction approximately 18 years prior or ten years before Clinton became President .
In the present case Stone s commutation is based on a conviction a short while ago and arising from actions in defense of Trump and his campaign.
Further ,Stone has made intimations that he refuses to talk about other “stuff” involving Trump.
I agree – The Trump corruption is unprecedented. But the Clinton corruption was not excusable either.
Mitt Romney calls this…
“Unprecedented ,historic corruption…”
We await the reaction( if any) of the rest of the Republicans.
What say ye: Mitch McConnell,John Thune, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise,Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, John Cornyn, Thom Tillis , Steve Daines, Joni Ernst, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rick Scott, Kelly Loeffler and all the rest?
Maybe the writers of that book on the Bushes got it wrong?
Maybe Mitt Romney is The Last Republican?
I’m sure Susan Collins is “concerned”
She should be, they have rank choice voting in Maine. She’s dead man walking.
Remember. Their. Names.
We talk about the two-party system. But what we have is one party, the Democratic party, and, at least at the national level, a self-dealing enterprise known as the Republican party. This enterprise takes illegal measures to suppress the vote, blocks oversight of billions of dollars in stimulus monies, corrupts the judicial system, provides avenues of self-enrichment for party loyalists, etc. Romney, Murkowski and even Sasse in the Senate, in my opinion, are ones left with anything resembling a conscience. They do not a national political party make. In the House, most Republicans with a conscience have or will be retiring. The Republican party will emerge from the 2020 election as even more of a self-dealing enterprise, threatening the fabric of democratic government at every turn.
There should be a like button.
Agreed RE.
People who want a return to the old GOP need to dump the rest of this lot out because they too are corrupt with power – the one thing that is most important to them. these are the last prople we should have in government.
And if if we did get rid of theTrump enablers and start fresh, the GOP would likely enjoy landslide wins in 2020.
The only question I really have: Is it possible to 1) ignore global warming, 2) Ignore income inequality, 3) Ignore racial injustice, but still have a good character? Perhaps, but I have my doubts.
Landslide wins in 2022.
I read where Lindsay Graham has previously endorsed commuting Stones sentence.
Of course the way Graham flips and flops ,who knows where he will be tomorrow?
Meanwhile down here in S.C. temperatures are in the mid 90s with a heat index of 107!
Remember how Trump and Fox News a few short months ago were claiming that the heat would do this virus in.
Well I’m just sitting here sippin’ some cool lemonade awaitin’.
S.C. had 2200 new cases today,a new single day record .
And in a real shocker. …
Congressman Jim Jordan says he “supports” Trumps decision!
Some Political Wire stuff on the Stone commutation
An Unforgivable Betrayal of His Office
The Washington Post editorial page:
“There are no doubt thousands of people in federal prison who deserved a presidential commutation more than Roger Stone. But after President Trump’s intervention on Friday, Mr. Stone will serve none of his prison sentence. The president may have had the power to help his longtime friend. But that does not make it any less a perversion of justice — indeed, it is one of the most nauseating instances of corrupt government favoritism the United States has ever seen.”
…
What More Did You Expect?
Jill Lawrence: “The longer the Trump presidency wears on, the more it reminds me of the joke about the man caught in a flood, turning down rides from a rowboat, a motorboat and a helicopter because he was waiting for God to save him. When he drowned, went to heaven and asked God why he’d let that happen, God replied: ‘I sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you expect?’”
“We have been handed enough evidence of corruption, incompetence, wrongdoing and amorality for dozens of lawsuits and impeachment articles and 25th Amendment triggers. What more did we expect?”
“It’s not God asking that in today’s version of the joke. It’s a bunch of very crestfallen Founding Fathers.”
…
Trump Goes Where Nixon Would Not
“President Trump has said he learned lessons from President Richard M. Nixon’s fall from grace, but in using the power of his office to keep his friend and adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. out of prison he has now crossed a line that even Mr. Nixon in the depths of Watergate dared not cross,” the New York Times reports.
“For months, some of Mr. Trump’s senior White House advisers warned him that it would be politically self-destructive if not ethically inappropriate to use his clemency power to help Mr. Stone, who was convicted of lying to protect the president. But in casting aside their counsel on Friday, Mr. Trump indulged his own sense of grievance over precedent and restraint to reward an ally for his silence.”
Jeffrey Toobin: The Roger Stone case shows why Trump is worse than Nixon.
…
Naked Corruption
Lawfare: “President Trump’s commutation of the prison sentence of his long-time confidante Roger Stone is wholly unsurprising. Indeed, given Trump’s repeated teasing of the matter over the life of the case against Stone, it would have been something of surprise had he not intervened so that his felonious friend was spared time behind bars.”
“But the predictable nature of Trump’s action should not obscure its rank corruption. In fact, the predictability makes the commutation all the more corrupt, the capstone of an all-but-open attempt on the president’s part to obstruct justice in a self-protective fashion over a protracted period of time. That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s actually not. Trump publicly encouraged Stone not to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s investigation; he publicly dangled clemency as a reward for silence; and he has now delivered. The act is predictable precisely because the corrupt action is so naked.”
Mitt is catching some flak for using the word “unprecedented.”
Of course it’s not and ,as usual, we are consumed with minutiae.Reminds me of the silliness over Joe Biden’s occasional gaffe.Compared to the innumerable lies told by Donald Trump on a typical day?
This is nothing.
Manu Raju
@mkraju
Pat Toomey a rare Republican to voice concerns about Roger Stone commutation. “While I understand the frustration with the badly flawed Russia-collusion investigation, in my view, commuting Roger Stone’s sentence is a mistake.”
Mitt is right. Unprecedented. No one worse than Trump nor will there be
Which is why there is no “both sides” and the only way to end this corruption is to vote for the one person who can and will make Trump a one term President.
Yes Scott….
As expected ….
President Trump late Saturday lashed out at a pair of Republican senators after they criticized his decision to commute the prison sentence of longtime confidant and former campaign adviser Roger Stone.
In a tweet, Trump accused Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) of being “RINOS,” a pejorative meaning “Republican in name only.”
“Do RINO’S Pat Toomey & Mitt Romney have any problem with the fact that we caught Obama, Biden, & Company illegally spying on my campaign?” Trump asked in a tweet, claiming that an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election included “lying and leaking all the way.”
“NO!” he added…
More…
Mitt Romney
Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president.
So when does the other shoe drop and close comrade-in-arms Michael Cohen get sprung? 😉
DSD?
Check THIS out….
Michael Cohen rushed back to upstate N.Y. prison after refusing to sign Trump book gag order…
…on Thursday afternoon, he was arrested at a probation office in downtown Manhattan after declining to sign a home confinement contract that required him to promise he wouldn’t speak to any journalists, use social media or publish a tell-all book about Trump for the duration of his sentence….
More..
How about Paul Manafort?
NYC DA Vance is after him on state charges….
Manafort was let out of federal jail due to the virus in May…
More….
David P Gelles
@gelles
Mueller’s investigation:
Roger Stone
Sentenced to 40 months in prison
— Trump commutes sentence
Michael Flynn
Pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI
— DOJ drops case
Paul Manafort
Sentenced to 7.5 years in prison
— Released from prison due to coronavirus concerns