Some of the conservative Republican senators who are often described as “moderates” and voted to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment — including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — claimed that the experience of going through an impeachment trial would inspire Trump to be more careful going forward. They were wrong: Trump set off yet another scandal when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) dramatically reversed its sentencing guidelines on veteran GOP operative Roger Stone following an angry tweet from the president. Someone who once worked in the DOJ as a federal prosecutor, University of Alabama law professor Joyce White Vance, addresses the Stone scandal in a February 12 op-ed for Time Magazine — and stresses that Trump is becoming even more of a threat to the rule of law.
“If a president can interfere in the way professional prosecutors conduct prosecutions, enforcing allegiance to him and stifling dissent, we no longer have a system of justice,” Vance warns. “No one is safe. Ultimately, a president could prosecute people he wants to jail and prevent prosecutions or lengthy sentences for his allies.”
On Monday, February 10, the DOJ released a sentencing memo recommending a prison sentence of seven to nine years for Stone. But the following day, after Trump’s angry tweet, the DOJ released a new sentencing memo urging a much more lenient sentence. This, according to Vance, is “such a sharp departure from the norms that it has caused anger and, in many corners, a sense of sorrow and grief among current and former prosecutors over what is happening at the Department (of Justice).” Continue reading.