On Commuting the Sentence of Roger Stone
It is clear from his actions, the President is trying to cover up his conduct with Russia and Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign and his subsequent perjury under oath to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Stone was convicted on seven felony counts by a jury of his peers of lying to Congress and to investigators and witness intimidation about his role in publishing the DNC documents stolen by the Russians through Wikileaks. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/roger-stone-trial-guilty.html
Trump Campaign Manager Steve Bannon, no less, stated that Roger Stone was the Trump’s campaign’s conduit to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/8/20955774/roger-stone-trial-steve-bannon-testimony Deputy Campaign Manager Rick Gates not only affirmed that Stone was the contact to Wikleaks, but that Stone briefed President Trump on the upcoming release of the stolen DNC server trials. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/12/trump-had-call-with-roger-stone-about-wikileaks-rick-gates-says.html President Trump denied this under oath in his answers to Mueller’s interrogatories. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/new-sections-mueller-report-roger-stone-trump-lie/
Roger Stone was facing a maximum sentence of up to 50 years. After the career prosecutors recommended a maximum sentence of 7-9 years, President Trump and Attorney General Barr went into overdrive to overrule and override the prosecutors, and the presiding judge ultimately sentenced Stone to 40 months. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/us/roger-stone-40-months-sentencing-verdict.html
Shortly before Stone was scheduled to report to jail and begin serving his sentence, President Trump commuted Stone’s sentence, explaining that in his view this was all part and parcel of the Russian hoax (a conclusion with which every US intelligence agency disagreed as well as all members of both parties on the Senate Intelligence Committee). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/us/politics/trump-roger-stone-nixon.html
This is corruption of the first order of magnitude and most likely obstruction of justice and an impeachable offense that no past President has dared. “Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah wrote on Twitter. Senator Lindsey Graham, as has become his wont, absolved the President and praised his leniency.
Since the Justice Department under Attorney General Barr and the US Senate under Majority Leader McConnell are utterly supine before the President, the American people will need to take matters into their own hands and remove them in the upcoming November 2020 election. After that point, investigations by Congress, the Justice Department and the judiciary can proceed without Presidential obstruction.
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 7/11/20