Tag: Stone convicted by a jury of his peers

Strange scenes at Roger Stone’s sentencing raise even more questions about William Barr

Washington Post logoOfficial Washington has been consumed over the past week with the drama at the Justice Department. Attorney General William P. Barr is increasingly embattled thanks to President Trump’s heavy-handed approach to DOJ business, in which Barr has unsuccessfully urged Trump to stop meddling.

The scenes in a courtroom Thursday — where Stone was ultimately sentenced to 40 months in prison — only heightened the drama. And they raised more questions about what in the world is happening inside Barr’s DOJ.

Barr intervened last week to overrule career prosecutors’ tough seven- to nine-year sentencing recommendation for Trump ally Roger Stone — shortly after Trump tweeted in opposition to the recommended sentence. That prompted the four prosecutors on the case to withdraw. Then came a more watered-down recommendation, which was signed by the prosecutor now leading the charge for the Justice Department, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Crabb.

Judge defends Congress in Roger Stone sentencing

Judge says lying to Congress was more than Stone’s normal ‘campaign hijinks’

A federal judge in Washington vigorously defended congressional power to investigate national security matters when giving Roger Stone a 40-month prison sentence Thursday, a punishment that “has to send the message that witnesses to do not get to decide for themselves” whether they can mislead lawmakers.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Stone, the longtime Republican political operative and confidant of President Donald Trump, wasn’t just doing his brand of “campaign hijinks” when he lied to a House Intelligence Committee during a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“He lied to Congress,” Jackson said. “Not to some secret anti-Trump cabal, but to Congress. To the elected representatives of both parties who were confronted with a matter of grave national importance.” Continue reading.

Roger Stone sentenced to 40 months in prison as judge accuses him of ‘covering up’ for Trump

AlterNet logoJudge Amy Berman Jackson has sentenced Trump ally Roger Stone to 40 months in prison. The sentence follows an outcry over President Donald Trump’s interference in the case and the radically different sentencing memos that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued earlier this month.

Last year, Roger was found guilty on seven criminal courts in federal court, including witness tampering and lying to Congress.

The sentence that Jackson handed down was neither as harsh as what the DOJ originally recommended nor as lenient as what it recommended in a subsequent sentencing memo. On Monday, February 12, the DOJ issued a sentencing memo that recommended seven to nine years in prison for the veteran GOP operative and self-described “dirty trickster.” But after Trump posted an angry tweet lambasting that recommendation, the DOJ issued a new sentencing memo the following day and recommended a much more lenient sentence — inspiring four federal prosecutors to resign from Stone’s case. Three of them are still with the DOJ, although one of the four left the DOJ altogether. Continue reading.