Roger Stone - Evil Incarnate
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The Post's View
Opinion
Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence is an unforgivable betrayal of his office
Opinion by Editorial Board
July 11, 2020 at 2:15 a.m. GMT+1
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.
There is no doubt about Mr. Stone’s guilt. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he tried to play intermediary between WikiLeaks, which had become a front for the Kremlin, and the Trump campaign, which reaped the benefits of WikiLeaks’s publication of stolen Democratic emails. A jury concluded that Mr. Stone obstructed Congress, lied to investigators and tampered with a witness in the investigations that followed the 2016 race — “covering up for the president,” as the judge in his case noted.
Though Attorney General William P. Barr moved to reduce Mr. Stone’s sentencing recommendation after conviction, even he called the case against Mr. Stone a “righteous” prosecution. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison and was due to surrender on Tuesday — thus prompting Mr. Trump’s Friday night action.
On Feb. 20, 2020, Roger Stone was sentenced to three years and four months in prison. President Trump commuted Stone’s sentence on July 10, 2020. (Monica Akhtar, Erin Patrick O'Connor/The Washington Post)
As Mr. Trump discussed granting clemency to his criminal friend, Mr. Barr publicly defended the sentence, perhaps to prevent a mutiny among Justice Department staff who signed up because they believe in the rule of law, not the arbitrary rule of an unusually petty man in the White House.
Now, the department’s career investigators and prosecutors must absorb yet another insult to their profession from political leaders who abuse their trust. We can only sympathize with their impossible position. A Justice Department brain drain would only reduce fairness and competence in federal law enforcement. It would no doubt take years of rebuilding to reattract the talent that Mr. Trump’s rule has already repelled from the department, let alone to replace a late-term exodus of staff. Yet we can blame no one in the Justice Department for misgivings or feelings of complicity with a wayward presidency. We hope that the coming presidential election will soon offer them — and the nation that relies on them — relief.
The United States is supposed to be a place in which laws apply equally to all. And while it never has — and never will — live up to that ideal in full, no modern president before Mr. Trump has so clearly renounced it. The president seems to be doing his best, within the confines of the U.S. constitutional system, to emulate the gangster leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man whose ruinous reign Mr. Trump has always admired. If the country needed any more evidence, Friday confirmed that the greatest threat to the Republic is the president himself.Comment
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Rumor is that Roger is now getting a "Trump stamp" to match the Nixon tattoo already on his back.Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992Comment
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It's unbelievable - full on dictatorship stuff. After this is over if it ever is, they need to change the pardon rules.Comment
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Even Willard Mittens Romney can figure it out (and he thinks God lives on a planet called "Kolob")
Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992Comment
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Stone takes part in a white supremacist group gesture in 2017 with a bunch of "Proud Boys" chumps...
See SNOPESComment
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Admittedly, I was a bit surprised by the commutation, strictly in terms of the timing of it, in that I figured Trump would at least wait until after the election (whatever the result).
Wasn't surprised in the least that Trump gave Stone a Get Out Of Jail card in terms of the action itself. Only the timing of it. And now, apparently Flynn is going to be welcomed back into the White House fold once his legal troubles recede, and might possibly publicly campaign for Trump in an official capacity in the meantime.Scramby eggs and bacon.Comment
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No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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Ah. Both Democrats and Republicans are the same. If you are connected you get off the hook. Stone will probably get pardoned later. If we really wanted to throw all the crooks in Washington in jail just put razor wire around the beltway and make the whole damn place a prison and don’t let anyone out.No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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Kolob Ale? Was that another Wasatch Brewery product, like Polygamy Porter??Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992Comment
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Yeah. Kolob Ale was a Wasatch Brewery product. Both Wasatch and Squatters would come up with beer names that made fun of the Mormons. Kolob would be a better name for absinthe. I would put a hunk of a god surrounded by hot women on the surface of a white hot star for the label and call it the portal to exalted heaven.No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992Comment
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