Tag: Trump corruption

Watch: Bill Barr’s face falls when a reporter asks him about the Roger Stone commutation

AlterNet logoOn Friday, President Donald Trump saved veteran GOP operative Roger Stone from federal prison by commuting his sentence. Attorney General Bill Barr, before the commutation, had said that he considered Stone’s prison sentence fair. But when CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang asked Barr to weigh in on the commutation, he had no comment.

Jiang approached Barr, introducing herself and asking the attorney general, “Do you have any comment on the Stone commutation?.” Barr smiled when Jiang first introduced herself, but after hearing the question, he immediately turned away from the CBS reporter and ignored her.

Stone was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for charges that included obstruction of justice, witness tampering and lying to Congress. During an interview with ABC News, Barr said of the sentence, “I think the prosecution was righteous, and I think the sentence the judge ultimately gave was fair.” Continue reading.

Roger Stone, and Trump’s extraordinary record on clemency

Washington Post logoPresident Trump has attempted to make law and order his calling card in the 2020 election. In fact, he’s tweeted or retweeted the words “LAW & ORDER” — in ALL CAPS — more than two dozen times since May 31.

The same president just commuted the sentence of a political ally, Roger Stone, who was recently convicted of seven crimes, including ones aimed at shielding the president himself.

The first thing that jumps out at you about Trump’s pardons and commutations is the inordinate number of them which have gone to people with either personal or political ties to Trump (or both): Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza, Conrad Black, Bernard Kerik, Rod Blagojevich, Michael Milken, Paul Pogue, David Safavian, Eddie DeBartolo Jr. and now Stone. It’s hardly unheard-of for a president to pardon allies — see Marc Rich et al. — but Trump has taken it to another level. Continue reading.

Sen. Graham says Mueller may be invited to testify in wake of op-ed on Trump’s commutation of Stone sentence

Washington Post logoSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggested Sunday that former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III may be invited to testify before his panel, although Graham did not give any details on the timing of any potential invitation.

Graham’s statement came one day after Mueller defended his office’s prosecution of Roger Stone, President Trump’s longtime friend and political adviser, in a Washington Post op-ed.

Trump commuted Stone’s 40-month prison sentence on Friday, using his presidential authority to undermine the unanimous finding by a jury that Stone broke the law multiple times by lying to Congress and obstructing justice. Continue reading.

Congress pulls punches on Russian bounties firestorm

The Hill logoCongress appears poised to do little, if anything, to pass legislation responding to intelligence indicating Russia had offered bounties for the killing of U.S. troops, despite the initial firestorm that erupted on Capitol Hill.

Democrats are continuing to press Trump administration officials for answers since news first broke that the U.S. intelligence community concluded months ago that a unit in Russia’s military intelligence agency offered payments to Taliban-linked militants to incentivize the killing of U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

A few bills have been filed in recent weeks to address the issue. In the Senate, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.), proposed adding sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin to the annual defense policy bill. Continue reading.

Trump confidant Roger Stone leaped over thousands of inmates seeking clemency

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence — over the objections of some aides and without the involvement of his administration’s pardon office — allowed an old friend to jump to the front of the slowest and longest line of federal inmates seeking mercy in decades.

The grant of clemency to Stone is one of only 36 Trump has granted, with 180 denied. After more than three years in office, Trump’s six predecessors had acted on hundreds or thousands of petitions for clemency.

Stone is emblematic of the very few people to receive clemency from Trump, with most being political allies who appealed directly to the White House instead of following Justice Department protocol. Continue reading.

‘Historic corruption’: 2 Republican senators denounce Trump’s commutation of Stone

GOP lawmakers have been mostly silent about the commutation.

Sens. Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey condemned Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of his longtime confidant Roger Stone — the first elected Republicans to denounce the president’s Friday night move.

“Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president,” Romney (R-Utah) wrote on Twitter Saturday.

GOP lawmakers have been mostly silent about the commutation, which came just after a federal appeals court panel rejected Stone’s last-ditch bid to delay the start of his 40-month prison sentence set to begin next week. Stone was convicted on seven felony charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, including obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements. Continue reading.

In Commuting Stone’s Sentence, Trump Goes Where Nixon Would Not

New York Times logoSenator Mitt Romney called the commutation an act of “unprecedented, historic corruption.” Attorney General William P. Barr privately argued against clemency for the president’s friend.

WASHINGTON — 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.

For months, senior advisers warned Mr. Trump that it would be politically self-destructive if not ethically inappropriate to grant clemency to Mr. Stone, who was convicted of lying to protect the president. Even Attorney General William P. Barr, who had already overruled career prosecutors to reduce Mr. Stone’s sentence, argued against commutation in recent weeks, officials said.

But in casting aside their counsel on Friday, Mr. Trump indulged his own sense of grievance over precedent to reward an ally who kept silent. Once again, he challenged convention by intervening in the justice system undermining investigators looking into him and his associates, just days after the Supreme Court ruled that he went too far in claiming “absolute immunity” in two other inquiries. Continue reading.

Robert Mueller: Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so

Washington Post logoRobert S. Mueller III served as special counsel for the Justice Department from 2017 to 2019.

The work of the special counsel’s office — its report, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions — should speak for itself. But I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office. The Russia investigation was of paramount importance. Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.

Russia’s actions were a threat to America’s democracy. It was critical that they be investigated and understood. By late 2016, the FBI had evidence that the Russians had signaled to a Trump campaign adviser that they could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to the Democratic candidate. And the FBI knew that the Russians had done just that: Beginning in July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen by Russian military intelligence officers from the Clinton campaign. Other online personas using false names — fronts for Russian military intelligence — also released Clinton campaign emails.

Following FBI Director James B. Comey’s termination in May 2017, the acting attorney general named me as special counsel and directed the special counsel’s office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The order specified lines of investigation for us to pursue, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign. One of our cases involved Stone, an official on the campaign until mid-2015 and a supporter of the campaign throughout 2016. Stone became a central figure in our investigation for two key reasons: He communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be Russian intelligence officers, and he claimed advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ release of emails stolen by those Russian intelligence officers. Continue reading.

The Roger Stone Case Shows Why Trump Is Worse Than Nixon

On March 21, 1973, President Richard Nixon and John Dean, the White House counsel, conferred in the Oval Office about ways to keep the Watergate scandal from consuming the Administration. The two men weighed the possibility of a pardon or commutation for E. Howard Hunt, one of the Watergate burglars. “Hunt’s now demanding clemency or he’s going to blow,” Dean said. “And, politically, it’d be impossible for, you know, you to do it.” Nixon agreed: “That’s right.” Dean continued, “I’m not sure that you’ll ever be able to deliver on clemency. It may be just too hot.” Neither Nixon nor Dean had especially refined senses of morality or legal ethics, but even they seemed to understand that a President could not use his pardon power to erase charges against someone who might offer testimony implicating Nixon himself in a crime. To do so, they recognized, would be too unseemly, too transparent, too egregiously corrupt. And, in fact, Nixon never gave a pardon, or commuted a sentence, of anyone implicated in the Watergate scandal.

But, on Friday night, Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of Roger Stone, his associate and political mentor of more than three decades. Last year, Stone was convicted of obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, and witness tampering in a case brought by Robert Mueller, the special counsel. William Barr, the Attorney General, had already overridden the sentencing recommendation of the prosecutors who tried the case—a nearly unprecedented act—and Stone was ultimately sentenced to forty months in prison. But Barr’s unseemly interference in the case was somehow not enough for the President, so Trump made sure that Stone would serve no time at all. The only trace of shame in Trump’s announcement was that he delivered it on a Friday night—supposedly when the public is least attentive. Continue reading “The Roger Stone Case Shows Why Trump Is Worse Than Nixon”

Romney calls Stone commutation “historic corruption”

Axios logoSen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Saturday tweeted a scathing response to President Trump’s Friday night commutation of former associate Roger Stone’s prison sentence, calling the move “[u]nprecedented, historic corruption.”

Why it matters: Romney has emerged as the party’s most prominent Trump critic. He sent shockwaves through Washington after announcing he would vote to convict Trump in the impeachment trial — becoming the only Senate Republican to break ranks and vote for the president’s removal from office. Now he is the first major GOP lawmaker to condemn Trump’s Friday night call regarding Stone.

What they’re saying: Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) wrote on Saturday afternoon: “The president clearly has the legal and constitutional authority to grant clemency for federal crimes. However, this authority should be used judiciously and very rarely by any president. While I understand the frustration with the badly flawed Russia-collusion investigation, in my view, commuting Roger Stone’s sentence is a mistake.”

  • “He was duly convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstructing a congressional investigation conducted by a Republican-led committee. Earlier this week Attorney General Bill Barr stated he thought Mr. Stone’s prosecution was ‘righteous’ and ‘appropriate’ and the sentence he received was ‘fair.’ Any objections to Mr. Stone’s conviction and trial should be resolved through the appeals process.” Continue reading.