https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/04/trump-promises-roger-stone-will-serve-no-prison-time-300351 Trump promises Stone won't serve prison time: ‘He can sleep well at night!’ The hint from the president came on Twitter and represents his latest intervention in Stone’s case. President Donald Trump on Thursday promised his longtime political adviser Roger Stone would not serve time in prison, saying the convicted Republican provocateur “can sleep well at night” and repeating his criticisms of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. The hint from the president came on Twitter, after Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA, wrote Tuesday that Stone “will serve more time in prison than 99% of these rioters destroying America,” referring to the ongoing nationwide protests and racial unrest sweeping the country. “All because he supports Donald Trump,” Kirk continued. “This isn’t justice. RT for a full pardon of Roger Stone!” Trump went on to share that tweet Thursday morning, writing in his own accompanying message: “No. Roger was a victim of a corrupt and illegal Witch Hunt, one which will go down as the greatest political crime in history. He can sleep well at night!” The president’s social media post represents his latest intervention in Stone’s case and comes after Trump and Attorney General William Barr were widely rebuked by congressional Democrats and career Justice Department officials for intervening in the legal matter earlier this year. Federal prosecutors urged in February that Stone be sent to prison for roughly seven to nine years for impeding congressional and FBI investigations into connections between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 campaign. But after Trump blasted the prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation in a tweet as a “horrible and very unfair situation,” the Justice Department submitted a revised filing that offered no specific term for Stone’s sentence and stated that the prosecutors’ initial proposal “could be considered excessive and unwarranted.” The four attorneys who shepherded Stone’s prosecution proceeded either to resign or notify the court that they were stepping off the case. Last month, about 2,000 former Justice Department officials signed a letter urging Barr to resign over his actions in cases of Stone and Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was also ensnared by Mueller’s probe. Other convicted associates of the president who were targets of the far-reaching investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, have been released from prison to home confinement due to concerns about the coronavirus. Stone has been told by the Bureau of Prisons to report to begin serving his sentence by June 30, and his appeal remains pending. He has not yet made any attempt to have his sentence postponed until after his appeal is resolved.
Flynn dismissal incoming: https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...1a6690-a522-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html D.C. Circuit sets oral argument date to review Judge Sullivan’s refusal to immediately close Michael Flynn’s case The panel reviewing the case next week consists of Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Robert Wilkins and Neomi Rao. one Reagan appointment, one Obama appointment, and one Trump lackey, does not bode well for Justice. In an October 11, 2019, opinion of a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Rao was the dissent in a 2-1 ruling to affirm a district court ruling supporting a congressional subpoena for President Trump's records from accounting firm Mazars USA LLP.[21] Her opinion stated, "allegations of illegal conduct against the president cannot be investigated by Congress except through impeachment." [22]
Lackey's gonna lackey: https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...s-court-orders-judge-to-dismiss-flynn-charges The panel ruled 2-1, with two Republican-appointed judges carrying the majority, that U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan overstepped his authority in second-guessing the prosecutors' decision.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics...-petition-pardon-roger-stone-prison-term.html Trump Suggests Desire to Pardon Roger Stone as Three-Year Prison Term Nears President Donald Trump left little doubt that he wants to pardon longtime ally and confidant Roger Stone a day after a federal judge set a date for him to report to serve his federal prison sentence. On Saturday morning, Trump retweeted a post by a supporter linking to an article on a far-right site that made reference to the signatures that a petition to pardon Stone has received. “It’s time to #pardonRogerStone,” reads the tweet by Lori Hendry, who describes herself as a “digital keyboard warrior” for Trump and has 342,200 followers. Trump endorsed the call to pardon Stone a day after a federal judge gave the president’s longtime ally an additional two weeks before he has to report to serve his federal prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a ruling Friday requiring Stone to begin his three-year prison term on July 14. Stone, 67, had requested a delay to start serving his sentence until September, citing concerns over the coronavirus. He had initially been scheduled to report to a federal prison in Jesup, Georgia on Tuesday. There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the prison and Jackson ordered Stone to remain confined to his home until July 14, a move that “will address the defendant’s stated medical concerns” and will also “protect the health of other inmates who share defendant’s anxiety over the potential introduction and spread of the virus at this now-unaffected facility.” Essentially, the move allows Stone time to put himself under quarantine to make sure he doesn’t take the coronavirus from his South Florida home to the prison.
His first priority from day one was to loot as much as he could. ‘The swamp is alive and well’: Trump-connected lobbyists have raked in $10 billion in Covid-19 aid for corporate clients In yet another sign that the “swamp is alive and well in Washington, D.C.” despite President Donald Trump’s repeated promises to drain it, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen released a new report Monday morning identifying at least 40 Trump-connected lobbyists who have raked in over $10 billion in federal Covid-19 relief for their corporate clients since the pandemic began. The dozens of lobbyists with ties to Trump through his campaigns, his administration, and/or his transition team “collectively have represented at least 150 clients on Covid matters,” Public Citizen notes in its new report titled “COVID Lobbying Palooza” (pdf). Those clients include such corporate behemoths as Pfizer, Comcast, McDonald’s, MasterCard, and American Airlines. “The crisis offered an especially lucrative opportunity for those lobbyists who enjoy close ties to President Donald Trump and his administration—and they seized it,” reads the report, which briefly profiles all 40 of the lobbiysts and details some of their activities. “They have reported lobbying to obtain special industry carveouts for aid, government approval of their clients’ products and, most commonly, Covid-related aid across a myriad of programs.” Public Citizen found that 27 clients of Trump-connected lobbyists have secured $10.5 billion in taxpayer coronavirus aid—a sum that is likely an underestimate because it does not include data from the $650 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which the White House has worked to keep under wraps. The $10.5 billion total, according to Public Citizen “consists of $6.3 billion in grants, $4.2 billion in loans, and $67 million worth of support in the form of corporate bond purchases by the Federal Reserve.”
party of law and order they said.... what part of the word illegal don't they understand they said... https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-trump-expected-commute-roger-stone-sentence Trump expected to commute Roger Stone sentence, days before prison term set to begin Roger Stone told Fox News he is 'praying' for Trump to intervene ahead of his prison sentence. President Trump is expected to announce that he will commute Roger Stone’s sentence, just days before the longtime political operative is slated to report to prison to serve more than three years for charges stemming from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, Fox News has learned. Sources told Fox News Friday that the president could announce a commutation of Stone’s sentence as early as Friday evening. EXCLUSIVE: ROGER STONE SAYS HE IS 'PRAYING' FOR CLEMENCY FROM TRUMP, DAYS BEFORE HE IS SET TO REPORT TO PRISON The president, as recently as Friday morning, has said he was "looking at" offering Stone clemency, saying he was "very unfairly treated." Stone was set to report to prison on July 14 to serve 40 months. He was sentenced in February to more than three years in prison after being convicted in November 2019 on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress on charges that stemmed from Mueller’s investigation. Stone, however, has appealed his conviction and continues to deny any wrongdoing. Trump, for weeks, has signaled he could be open to granting Stone clemency — tweeting last month that Stone was “a victim of a corrupt and illegal Witch Hunt, one which will go down as the greatest political crime in history. He can sleep well at night!” During an exclusive interview with Fox News this week, Stone said he was “praying” for Trump to intervene. When asked whether he’d prefer a pardon or a commutation of his sentence, Stone said “either one obviously would have an effect, in my opinion, of saving my life.” A presidential pardon completely absolves an individual of the crime he or she is found to have committed. A commutation lessens the punishment or eliminates jail time, but leaves the conviction standing. “I have deep concerns about going to a prison where there absolutely is COVID virus, and, therefore, either one would have an effect of saving my life," Stone said. He added: “If I should be fortunate enough to get a commutation, I would continue to fight for vindication.” eo As of Thursday evening, Stone said he had not received any formal communication from the White House on a potential pardon or commutation of his sentence. I think I’ll be the last person to know,” Stone told Fox News. “He hates leaks, and he hates to be told what to do. I have instructed my lawyers not to contact the lawyers at the White House.” “The president, who I’ve known for 40 years, has an incredible sense of fairness. He is aware that the people trying to destroy Michael Flynn, now trying to destroy me, are the people trying to destroy him," Stone said. He added: "I certainly think it could happen. I’m not going to second-guess the president.” STONE SENTENCED TO MORE THAN 3 YEARS IN PRISON FOR LYING TO CONGRESS, WITNESS TAMPERING Stone was not charged with any underlying crime of coordinating with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, though Mueller’s team investigated Stone over tweets claiming to have information about WikiLeaks document dumps prior to their release. When asked whether Stone felt WikiLeaks influenced the 2016 election, he said: “Yes. All of it.” “My whole purpose in hyping Wikileaks on Twitter was to make sure the media didn’t sweep it under the rug, only because I was told it was politically significant,” Stone said of his tweets in 2016, which he said were “not specific,” and simply flagged that a WikiLeaks document dump “would be big” and was coming. “I never discussed it with Trump. I have no idea what he thought about it, we never discussed it,” Stone said. “You have to understand something about Donald Trump—when you talk to him on the phone, he talks and you listen. That’s kind of the way it works.” When asked whether Stone had any regrets over his involvement in 2016, he said no. “I engaged in legitimate, perfectly legal political activity which Mueller’s corrupt investigation chose to criminalize,” Stone said. “I thought the results of the 2016 election were crucial.” Meanwhile, earlier this week, Facebook announced it had removed a network of accounts on the platform and on Instagram allegedly linked to Stone. The company said the accounts were allegedly involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior in the United States.” The networks, according to Facebook, were focused on domestic audiences. Facebook said it “identified the full scope” of the networks “following the recent public release of search warrants pertaining to the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in response to a joint petition from The New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and Politico.” FACEBOOK SAYS IT TOOK DOWN NETWORK AFFILIATED WITH ROGER STONE THAT INCLUDED FAKE ACCOUNTS “Our investigation linked this network to Roger Stone and his associates,” Facebook said Wednesday. Stone, however, denied being linked to the accounts, calling Facebook's accusations “defamatory,” and said he did not think it was “coincidental” that they made the announcement this week. “They’ll have a chance to prove it. Words on a press release are assertions and accusations. It is false,” Stone said. “It is put up or shut up time very soon. They’ll get a chance to show me the illegitimate sites. They don’t exist. I don’t own hundreds of Facebook pages and I never have.” Stone claimed that Facebook's actions were "attempted character assassination to derail clemency.” Stone told Fox News he plans to file a lawsuit against the social media giant. “My lawsuit against Facebook will be a defamation suit,” he said. “They have accused me of doing something that they imply is illegal and violated their rules.” He added: “It’s not true. I can prove it’s not true.”
criminals gonna crime #FullBanana inb4 "both sides" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/us/politics/trump-roger-stone-clemency.html Trump Commutes Sentence of Roger Stone in Case He Long Denounced The president’s friend had been convicted of impeding a congressional inquiry that threatened Mr. Trump. WASHINGTON — President Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. on seven felony crimes on Friday, using the power of his office to spare a former campaign adviser days before Mr. Stone was to report to a federal prison to serve a 40-month term. In a lengthy written statement punctuated by the sort of inflammatory language and angry grievances characteristic of the president’s Twitter feed, the White House denounced the “overzealous prosecutors” who convicted Mr. Stone on “process-based charges” stemming from the “witch hunts” and “Russia hoax” investigation. The statement did not assert that Mr. Stone was innocent of the false statements and obstruction counts, only that he should not have been pursued because prosecutors ultimately filed no charges of an underlying conspiracy between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia. “Roger Stone has already suffered greatly,” it said. “He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!” The commutation, announced late on a Friday when potentially damaging news is often released, was the latest action by the Trump administration upending the justice system to help the president’s convicted friends. The Justice Department moved in May to dismiss its own criminal case against Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. And last month, Mr. Trump fired Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney whose office prosecuted Michael D. Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer, and has been investigating Rudolph W. Giuliani, another of his lawyers. Democrats quickly condemned the president’s decision, characterizing it as an abuse of the rule of law. “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,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a leader of the drive to impeach Mr. Trump last year for pressuring Ukraine to incriminate his domestic rivals. Two House committee chairmen quickly announced that they would investigate the circumstances of the commutation, suggesting that it was a reward for Mr. Stone’s silence protecting the president. “No other president has exercised the clemency power for such a patently personal and self-serving purpose,” said a statement issued by Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn B. Maloney, both New York Democrats. Mr. Stone, 67, a longtime Republican operative, was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and possible ties to Russia. Prosecutors convinced jurors that he lied under oath, withheld a trove of documents and threatened an associate with harm if he cooperated with congressional investigators. Mr. Stone maintained his innocence and claimed prosecutors wanted him to offer information about Mr. Trump that he said did not exist. As his time to report to prison neared, Mr. Stone openly lobbied for clemency, maintaining that he could die in prison and emphasizing that he had stayed loyal to the president rather than help investigators. “He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him,” Mr. Stone told the journalist Howard Fineman on Friday shortly before the announcement. “It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.” In an interview with Fox News this week, he characterized himself as collateral damage in the quest to target Mr. Trump. “The president, who I’ve known for 40 years, has an incredible sense of fairness,” Mr. Stone said. “He is aware that the people trying to destroy Michael Flynn, now trying to destroy me, are the people trying to destroy him.” While it was not clear when the two last spoke before the decision, Mr. Trump called Mr. Stone on Friday to deliver the news of his clemency personally, according to an official briefed on the conversation. The president has used his power to issue pardons or commutations to a variety of political allies, supporters or people with connections to his own circle, like the former New York police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, the financier Michael R. Milken and former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois. But Mr. Stone is the first figure directly connected to the president’s campaign to benefit from his clemency power. While Mr. Trump has publicly dangled pardons for associates targeted by investigators, that was a line he had been wary of crossing until now amid warnings from advisers concerned about the possible political damage. The debate over clemency for Mr. Stone has raged within the White House for months. Among those who advocated on behalf of it from outside the building were Tucker Carlson, the influential Fox News anchor, and Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, according to people familiar with the discussions. Within the White House, Mr. Stone had few allies. Many Trump aides who knew him from the campaign did not like him, were envious of his long relationship with Mr. Trump or thought clemency would be bad politics. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, expressed concern about potential political consequences, according to two people familiar with the discussions, although he has left people with different impressions about where he stands. The same is true of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who has been involved in most of the clemency discussions throughout the past three years. Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, was concerned about intervening on Mr. Stone’s behalf, according to the people close to the discussions. One of the few within the White House who backed clemency was Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser and an old friend of Mr. Stone’s. Mr. Kudlow spends more time with Mr. Trump than many other advisers. “Mr. Stone is incredibly honored that President Trump used his awesome and unique power under the Constitution of the United States for this act of mercy,” Grant Smith, Mr. Stone’s lawyer, said after the announcement. “Mr. and Mrs. Stone appreciate all the consideration the president gave to this matter.” Mr. Stone has been one of the most one of the most flamboyant rogues in American politics for decades, maintaining a wardrobe of more than 100 suits, bleaching his hair, posing for photographs half-naked and cheerfully engaging in dirty tricks that others would disavow. He made political contributions to a Republican challenger to President Richard M. Nixon in 1972 under the name of the Young Socialist Alliance and hired an operative to try to infiltrate the campaign of George McGovern, the Democratic candidate. He was accused of leaving a threatening, profanity-laced voice mail message for the father of Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York, resulting in Mr. Stone’s resignation. But he later got his revenge on Mr. Spitzer by claiming credit for spreading the rumor that the governor wore black dress socks during sexual escapades with prostitutes. An unapologetic admirer of Mr. Nixon who even had the disgraced president’s face tattooed on his back, Mr. Stone also worked for other major Republican candidates including President Ronald Reagan, Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey and Senator Bob Dole, the party’s 1996 nominee for president. Mr. Stone’s history of scandals and dirty tricks did not trouble Mr. Trump. Mr. Stone is not only Mr. Trump’s longest-serving political adviser, but he has been integral to most of the president’s political activities over the past three decades. He was there when the celebrity real estate developer first wrote “The Art of the Deal” in 1987 and a makeshift effort in New Hampshire was made to draft Mr. Trump to run for president. He helped organize Mr. Trump’s speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011, where he declared himself against abortion rights. And he helped map out the first days of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign before leaving after several weeks over its direction. Mr. Stone quit that campaign; Mr. Trump later claimed he fired Mr. Stone. Either way, the falling out was sour, part of a roller-coaster, feud-and-friends relationship that played out over the years. At one point, Mr. Trump called Mr. Stone a “stone-cold loser” and aides later said the president viewed him as a self-promoter. But after Mr. Stone was indicted, the president repeatedly assailed the prosecutors, judge and even jury forewoman, hinting that he might pardon him. “Roger Stone and everybody has to be treated fairly,” Mr. Trump said after Mr. Stone was sentenced in February. “This has not been a fair process.” Mr. Stone was sentenced against a backdrop of upheaval at the Justice Department not seen for decades. First, four career prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison, citing advisory sentencing guidelines that generally govern the department’s sentencing requests. After Mr. Trump attacked the prosecutors’ recommendation on Twitter, Attorney General William P. Barr overruled it. Mr. Trump then publicly applauded him for doing so, even though the attorney general said he made the decision on his own and criticized the president on national television for undercutting his credibility. The prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest, and one quit the department entirely. At Mr. Stone’s sentencing hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia called the situation “unprecedented.” Without naming him, she suggested that the president had tried to influence the course of justice by publicly attacking her, the jurors and the Justice Department lawyers. “The dismay and disgust at any attempt to interfere with the efforts of prosecutors and members of the judiciary to fulfill their duty should transcend party,” she said. In an interview with ABC News this week, Mr. Barr defended both the original prosecution of Mr. Stone as well as his own intervention to reduce the punishment, saying the case itself was “righteous” but the sentencing recommendation “excessive.” Mr. Stone, who lives in Florida, had been ordered earlier to report to the Bureau of Prisons by June 30 to begin serving his sentence. He sought a two-month delay, citing the coronavirus pandemic sweeping through federal prisons, but Judge Jackson granted him only a two-week reprieve, noting that the prison he was to report to was “unaffected” by the outbreak. Two other former aides to Mr. Trump who were convicted of federal crimes were released from prison to serve out their sentences under home arrest because of the pandemic. Mr. Cohen, who broke with Mr. Trump and publicly accused him of vast wrongdoing, was released from a federal prison camp in May, but taken back into custody this week after refusing to agree to terms of his home confinement that would have forced him to scrub a tell-all book he planned to publish in September. He was serving a three-year sentence for campaign finance violations and other crimes related to a scheme to pay hush money during the 2016 presidential race to two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump, which the president has denied. Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman, was also released in May from a central Pennsylvania prison, where he was serving a seven-and-a-half year sentence for bank and tax fraud. He is now confined at home. Mr. Trump has suggested he might issue clemency to other associates and the extended statement released by the White House on Friday night sought to make the case that the Russia investigation was so illegitimate that charges resulting from it were themselves invalid. “These charges were the product of recklessness borne of frustration and malice,” the statement said. “This is why the out-of-control Mueller prosecutors, desperate for splashy headlines to compensate for a failed investigation, set their sights on Mr. Stone.”