Justice Dept. to reduce sentencing recommendation for Trump associate Roger Stone, official says, after president calls it ‘unfair’

[homersapien 11,366]

[Breaking: A former member of Robert Mueller’s team seeks to quit Roger Stone’s case amid a fight with superiors over the Trump ally’s prison term

Aaron S.J. Zelinsky had been serving as as a special assistant United States attorney for the District of Columbia since Robert S. Mueller III shut down the special counsel’s office last year.

His request to leave comes as the Justice Department said it would reduce its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Trump, after top officials professed to be blindsided by the seven-to-nine-year penalty Zelinksky and other prosecutors urged a judge to impose.]

The Justice Department plans to reduce its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Trump, after top officials professed to be blindsided by the seven-to-nine-year penalty prosecutors urged a judge to impose, a senior Justice Department official said Tuesday.

In a stunning rebuke of career prosecutors that immediately raised questions about political interference in the case, a senior Justice Department official said the department “was shocked to see the sentencing recommendation in the Roger Stone case last night.”

“That recommendation is not what had been briefed to the department,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. “The department finds the recommendation extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone’s offenses. The department will clarify its position later today.”

The statement came hours after Trump tweeted about the sentence prosecutors recommended, saying: “This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” The senior Justice Department official, though, said the decision to revise prosecutors’ recommendation came before Trump’s tweet.

Stone was convicted by a jury in November of obstructing Congress and witness tampering. His was the last conviction secured by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as part of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Stone has been a friend and adviser to Trump since the 1980s and was a key figure in his 2016 campaign, working to discover damaging information on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

Former Justice Department officials and those on the political left asserted the department’s abrupt shift on Stone was an egregious example of the president and his attorney general bending federal law enforcement to serve their political interests.

David Laufman, a former Justice Department official, called it a “shocking, cram-down political intervention” in the criminal justice process.

“We are now truly at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment for the Justice Dept.,” he wrote on Twitter.

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) said the move amounted to “obstruction of justice.”

“We are seeing a full-frontal assault on the rule of law in America,” Pascrell said. “Direct political interference in our justice system is a hallmark of a banana republic. Despite whatever Trump, William Barr, and their helpers think, the United States is a nation of laws and not an authoritarian’s paradise.”

Attorney General William P. Barr has previously faced criticism for seeking to protect Trump and undercut the special counsel’s work.

In perhaps the most notable instance, he sent Congress a letter before public release of the special counsel’s report, describing what he called the investigation’s principal conclusions. Mueller, Barr wrote, did not find that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election, and reached no conclusion on whether Trump had sought to obstruct justice. Barr wrote that he and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein reviewed the matter and concluded there was insufficient evidence to make an obstruction case.

The bare-bones description so infuriated the special counsel’s team that Mueller wrote to Barr complaining that the attorney general’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the Russia probe. Barr, though, repeated his description at a news conference before Mueller’s full report was released, drawing criticism that he was trying to shape public opinion in a way favorable to Trump......

Read the rest at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-to-reduce-sentencing-recommendation-for-trump-associate-roger-stone-official-says-after-president-calls-it-unfair/2020/02/11/ad81fd36-4cf0-11ea-bf44-f5043eb3918a_story.html

 

 

 

 

[AUFAN78 3,894]

Draining the swamp. Past due. Americans deserve better.

[homersapien 11,366]

As Trump openly corrupts DOJ, a former insider sounds the alarm

President Trump is now openly flaunting his success in manipulating law enforcement for nakedly political and corrupt ends. With the Justice Department in turmoil over the decision by higher-ups to downscale a sentencing recommendation for longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, Trump tweeted:

Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought. Evidence now clearly shows that the Mueller Scam was improperly brought & tainted. Even Bob Mueller lied to Congress!

This is a straight-up celebration of the fact that in intervening for Stone — who was convicted of obstructing Congress and witness tampering in connection with investigations into Russian subversion of our election — Barr is doing the president’s political bidding.

In their original recommendation of a stiff sentence for Stone, prosecutors explicitly noted he’d obstructed an investigation designed to provide a full accounting of that attack on our political system.

But now Trump is openly declaring that in interfering, Barr is helping to delegitimize that investigation entirely. In short, Barr — who has tasked prosecutor John Durham with “reviewing” the investigation’s origins — is helping Trump make the Russian attack disappear.

In a decision made by Barr’s office, the Justice Department has now offered a supplemental sentencing memo for Stone that declares the earlier recommendation as “excessive and unwarranted.”

Shockingly, that came after Trump raged about the first recommendation. It will now fall to Judge Amy Jackson to sort through the competing claims.

One person who is exceptionally well positioned to shed light on all this is Michael R. Bromwich, who was the Justice Department inspector general from 1994 to 1999. In a viral tweet, Bromwich called on insiders to report any political manipulation they witness, a remarkable and alarming development.

I caught up with Bromwich and asked him to explain the true nature of the threat this moment poses. An edited and condensed version of our conversation follows.

Greg Sargent:

Trump has now publicly admitted his attorney general intervened in the case of his own longtime adviser for the express purpose of undermining DOJ’s own investigative conclusions about him. Your reaction?

 

Michael R. Bromwich:

It’s a continuation of the breakdown of the appropriate relationship between the White House and the Department of Justice. Trump doesn’t make communications secretly. The president tweets out his views for the attorney general and other high ranking Justice Department officials to see — and act upon.

 

Sargent:

Trump just did the same in the case of Stone. He tweeted about the sentencing recommendation, and lo and behold, DOJ acted.

Bromwich:

Exactly. With this president, there’s no need for secret communications.

 

 

Sargent:

After Watergate, there was a robust debate over what to do about the politicization of law enforcement. Having it under the executive branch subjects it to political accountability. Yet this exposes law enforcement to the possibility of political manipulation by presidents.

The norm of prosecutorial independence arose to deal with this problem, correct?

 

Bromwich:

Even before Watergate, people were wary of White House interference with the department. But Watergate crystallized an institutional norm that militated against any kind of interference and limited communications about criminal and national security matters.

The norm that has existed in recent times was that communications were generally limited to between the deputy attorney general and the White House Counsel’s Office.

 

Sargent:

How serious a break-glass moment is this?

 

Bromwich:

It’s extremely serious. The department had to understand that filing a supplemental memo would undermine the line prosecutors and make the department look terrible. Yet they were willing to do that, apparently because that’s what the president wanted.

 

Sargent:

Even if one believes the sentencing recommendation for Stone was too draconian, it’s still improper for higher-ups to interfere, correct? After all, the judge would evaluate it herself.

 

Bromwich:

It’s a demoralizer for any career prosecutor to realize that their recommendation can be completely reversed if it’s not politically correct.

The remedy is that it’s completely within Judge Jackson’s power to call a hearing and find out what the hell is going on. She now has two sentencing memos that conflict with each other. If I’m the judge, I want to know what explains this irregularity.

 

Sargent:

The first sentencing recommendation discusses how serious Stone’s crimes were in terms of the threat they posed to the integrity of our political system. In that context, we now have Trump explicitly declaring that the entire investigation into the attack on our system was illegitimate. He’s trying to erase that original attack.

 

 

Bromwich:

That’s exactly what he’s trying to do. He has utter disregard for our system. That is an existential threat to the institutions that most of us value, prize and have served.

 

Sargent:

What is it you want to see from DOJ employees?

 

Bromwich:

I can’t believe this is a solitary episode. The country and the Justice Department would be well served by people who know about these things to have the courage to resign, and explain their reasons for resigning, or report the misconduct they’ve witnessed to the inspector general.

 

Sargent:

What sort of misconduct might there be more of here? What’s a worst-case scenario?

 

Bromwich:

Opening investigations into political opponents. Closing down investigations into political allies. Those are the two most worrisome examples.

 

Sargent:

Is it reasonable to suspect Barr has entertained opening criminal investigations of Trump’s political rivals in some form?

 

Bromwich:

We know he has implemented Trump’s views of the Mueller investigation by opening the Durham investigation. The purpose of that seemingly is to undermine the legitimacy of the original Russia investigation that led to Mueller and criminal prosecutions.

 

Sargent:

This circles us back to Trump’s tweet, in which he seems to send out the message that the prosecutors should now be prosecuted.

 

Bromwich:

Yes. Any time anybody in government does something he doesn’t like, he wants to punish them by investigating and prosecuting them. That’s scary stuff.

 

Sargent:

Could House Democrats do more oversight that might encourage DOJ employees to come forward?

 

Bromwich:

They can hold oversight hearings and demand that the attorney general appear.

If people know the House is aggressively conducting oversight and have an appetite to hear complaints, they then have a clear avenue through which to report what they’ve seen.

 

Sargent:

Including confidentially.

 

Bromwich:

Yes, absolutely.

 

Sargent:

Even if they do subpoena Barr and his deputies, there’s a decent chance he won’t show up. Then what?

 

Bromwich:

Then they can hold him in contempt. Is it a meaningful sanction? No. But it has value anyway. It underscores the point that this Department of Justice appears not to respect a coequal branch of government.

 

Sargent:

And that could snowball the phenomenon in which people come forward?

 

Bromwich:

That’s right.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/12/trump-openly-corrupts-doj-former-insider-sounds-alarm/

 

 

Read more:

Jennifer Rubin: The Justice Department becomes a political hit squad for an unleashed president

[homersapien 11,366]

16 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Draining the swamp. Past due. Americans deserve better.

You robots just can't give up your liberty soon enough.

[AUFAN78 3,894]

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

You robots just can't give up your liberty soon enough.

Are you certain it has anything to do with liberty? I'm guessing no.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

On 2/11/2020 at 5:59 PM, AUFAN78 said:

Draining the swamp. Past due. Americans deserve better.

He was convicted by a jury of his peers.  Does that not matter anymore?

[homersapien 11,366]

19 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

Are you certain it has anything to do with liberty? I'm guessing no.

An independent judicial system vs. one controlled by the executive??  Of course that has a direct bearing on our liberty.

Your "guessing" is no better than your reasoning.  Or you simply don't understand the basis of our system.

[homersapien 11,366]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/12/this-is-revolting-assault-fragile-rule-law/

This is a revolting assault on the fragile rule of law

By Chuck Rosenberg 

Feb. 12, 2020 at 2:30 p.m. EST

Chuck Rosenberg is a former U.S. attorney, senior FBI official and acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Something extraordinary and deeply troubling happened at — and to — the Justice Department this week. Four federal prosecutors properly, and as a matter of conscience, withdrew from the Roger Stone case. They had shepherded that case through the criminal-justice system but in an alarming development were ordered to disavow a sentencing recommendation they filed with the federal judge overseeing the matter.

Their original recommendation — asking the judge to sentence Stone within the range set by the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the offenses for which Stone was convicted at trial — was a perfectly ordinary filing. It is the type of pleading filed in federal courts by federal prosecutors every day. Certainly, when a defendant is convicted at trial, it is routine for prosecutors to suggest to the judge that he be sentenced within a prescribed range — the result of a cumbersome sentencing guidelines calculation that is often debated between the parties and adjudicated by the court.

Of course, the filing was just a recommendation to the judge, who has ample authority to sentence Stone within that range — or above it or below it — as she determines. Prosecutors do not sentence defendants; judges do. So how did something so ordinary become so extraordinary?

First, some background. The Justice Department that I know and love — and in which I worked for two decades in many roles — must always be two things to the public it serves: fair and perceived as fair. These are related but distinct concepts. Our work must be fair — that is, we must have fair outcomes as a matter of practice and principle. Anything less is unacceptable, which is one reason, for instance, we turned over exculpatory evidence (a constitutional obligation) and why we publicly fronted our mistakes when we made them.

But our work must also be perceived as fair. Fair outcomes are not worth much if the public does not perceive those outcomes as fair. One way, among many, we ensure that is to assiduously avoid politics in our work. When I was a career federal prosecutor in Virginia, my colleagues and I simply did not talk about politics. I did not know then, and I largely do not know now, how my colleagues (including the federal agents with whom we worked) voted or even if they voted. It simply did not matter to our work. Folks did not talk about it. It was irrelevant to our work. We knew that unwritten rule. Whatever our view, we kept it to ourselves, because it had no place in our world and because letting it seep in would corrode our work. We worked free of political interference or influence. Always.

Until now, apparently. What happened? Following the routine filing by the career prosecutors — in line with the sentencing guidelines applicable to the Stone case — the president inexplicably tweeted that the sentence Stone faced was a “miscarriage” of justice, calling it a “horrible and very unfair situation.”

And then — and this is the part that is so disturbing — the prosecutors were ordered, either because of the president’s tweet or irrespective of it (and both scenarios are awful), to rescind their original recommendation and to ask the judge that Stone receive more lenient treatment at his sentencing. What the prosecutors were ordered to do was dangerous and unsettling and undermined everything they — and we — stood for as Justice Department professionals. They properly refused.

We all understand that the leadership at the top of the department is politically appointed, and we make peace with that (in addition to my work as a career federal prosecutor, I served in political positions under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the Justice Department and worked for thoughtful appointed leaders of both parties), but being asked by that leadership to allow politics to corrode our work is not remotely normal or permissible. And it is treacherous.

The rule of law is a construct. It was made by people — and is nurtured and preserved by people. It can also be destroyed by people. And unlike the law of gravity, which works everywhere and all the time (at least on this planet), the rule of law is precious and fragile. As citizens and prosecutors, we either safeguard it or we surrender it. That’s the choice. What political leadership did here — mandating a favor for a friend of the president in line with the president’s publicly expressed desire in the case — significantly damages the rule of law and the perception of Justice Department fairness.

Principled resignations by career federal prosecutors highlighted this dangerous stunt. I am proud of them for that.

But I find it revolting that they were pushed into that corner (one resigned his job; three others resigned from the case) and saddened by their sacrifice. This is not normal and it is not right,and it is dangerous territory for the rule of law.

Safeguard or surrender. You choose.

[AUFAN78 3,894]

20 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

He was convicted by a jury of his peers.  Does that not matter anymore?

Of course, but it is the sentencing at the heart of this debate not guilt or innocence. It's a fluid situation with lots of info coming out. Will be interesting to watch.

 

[TexasTiger 12,831]

55 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

Of course, but it is the sentencing at the heart of this debate not guilt or innocence. It's a fluid situation with lots of info coming out. Will be interesting to watch.

 

Lots of disinfo coming out. Guilty as hell. Witnesses  Implicated Trump. Stone covered up the collusion. The obstruction continues.

[AuburnNTexas 7,140]

He was found guilty and from what I read I believe he is guilty.  As  to whether he got a fair trial when the Juror foreman's tweets show bias before and during the trial it wasn't fair. That said if he is given a re-trial I still expect him to be convicted based on evidence presented.  The length of the sentence is what is in question other people convicted of similar crimes who had no previous criminal record have not had a recommendation of the length that was suggested. 

One thing nobody is mentioning neither what original prosecutors recommended or what  DOJ changed it to matters the Judge will be the final arbiter and you could see one of multiple things. Judge could call a mistrial because of information on Jury Foreman, Judge could agree with original prosecutors,  Judge could agree with new DOJ recommendations,  or Judge could come up with a sentence less than DOJ or could choose one harsher than original prosecutors.  

We should probably wait till Judge rules before we get our Panties in a Wad.

[AUFAN78 3,894]

20 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

Lots of disinfo coming out. Guilty as hell. Witnesses  Implicated Trump. Stone covered up the collusion. The obstruction continues.

Pull back your blinders goober.

[AUFAN78 3,894]

2 hours ago, AuburnNTexas said:

He was found guilty and from what I read I believe he is guilty.  As  to whether he got a fair trial when the Juror foreman's tweets show bias before and during the trial it wasn't fair. That said if he is given a re-trial I still expect him to be convicted based on evidence presented.  The length of the sentence is what is in question other people convicted of similar crimes who had no previous criminal record have not had a recommendation of the length that was suggested. 

One thing nobody is mentioning neither what original prosecutors recommended or what  DOJ changed it to matters the Judge will be the final arbiter and you could see one of multiple things. Judge could call a mistrial because of information on Jury Foreman, Judge could agree with original prosecutors,  Judge could agree with new DOJ recommendations,  or Judge could come up with a sentence less than DOJ or could choose one harsher than original prosecutors.  

We should probably wait till Judge rules before we get our Panties in a Wad.

Amen!

And I have to comment on your last point. It is spot on! You'd think a collective group that has basically gotten everything wrong and thrown back in their face for three years would at the very least wait for the story to materialize. You know, like actual facts. But no, the mentally obtuse triggered by a corrupt partisan media jumps without breath or thought. I am convinced they'll never learn.

[TexasTiger 12,831]

1 hour ago, AUFAN78 said:

Pull back your blinders goober.

Get a clue, blind as a bat cultist.

[AUFAN78 3,894]

2 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

Get a clue, blind as a bat cultist.

Goober, look in the mirror. YOU ARE THE CULTIST.

Cultist never question their leader. Republicans question their leader daily.

You accept your party leaders every single time. No questions asked. 

[TexasTiger 12,831]

31 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

Goober, look in the mirror. YOU ARE THE CULTIST.

Cultist never question their leader. Republicans question their leader daily.

You accept your party leaders every single time. No questions asked. 

😂😂😂😂😂

Republicans questioning their leader: “Mr. President, what’s your greatest accomplishment? There are soooo many, we can’t decide.”

[AUFAN78 3,894]

1 minute ago, TexasTiger said:

😂😂😂😂😂

Republicans questioning their leader: “Mr. President, what’s your greatest accomplishment? There are soooo many, we can’t decide.”

This is your deflection phase after being shown truth. So be it. You've shown no ability to change nor accept reality. Unfortunately predictable. 

[TexasTiger 12,831]

2 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

This is your deflection phase after being shown truth. So be it. You've shown no ability to change nor accept reality. Unfortunately predictable. 

 

[AUFAN78 3,894]

48 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

 

Laughable. Reality will one day hit you.

[TexasTiger 12,831]

55 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

Laughable. Reality will one day hit you.

Psycho lecturing on reality. 😂🤣😂

[AUFAN78 3,894]

42 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

Psycho lecturing on reality. 😂🤣😂

I try to see potential in others, but struggle with you. 

[homersapien 11,366]

This is how democracy dies — in full view of a public that couldn’t care less

The French philosopher Montesquieu wrote in 1748: “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.” We are seeing his warning vindicated. President Trump is increasingly acting as a tyrannical (and erratic) prince. And yet much of the public is so inured to his misconduct that his latest assaults on the rule of law are met with a collective shrug. Public passivity is Trump’s secret weapon as he pursues his authoritarian agenda. “I have the right to do whatever I want,” he says, and the lack of pushback seems to confirm it.

So much bad has happened since Trump was unjustly acquitted by the Senate of two articles of impeachment on Feb. 5 that it’s hard to keep it all straight.

Trump fired Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for complying with a congressional subpoena and providing truthful testimony about Trump’s attempts to extort Ukraine into aiding him politically. Also ousted was Vindman’s brother, who did not testify. This sends a mob-like message: If you turn stool pigeon, your family gets it, too.

Trump’s ongoing quest for retribution has also claimed Jessie K. Liu, who was abruptly removed as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and replaced by a close aide to Attorney General William P. Barr after prosecuting Trump loyalists, including Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. Now Liu’s nomination to a senior Treasury Department position has been withdrawn. Next on the chopping block may be Elaine McCusker, the Pentagon official who tried to tell the Office of Management and Budget that Trump had no right to withhold aid to Ukraine. The New York Post reported that her nomination to be Pentagon comptroller will be withdrawn. (McCusker denies the report.)

While punishing those who dared to tell the truth, Trump is protecting those who assist his coverup. He inveighed against the request of federal prosecutors, following normal sentencing guidelines, to give Stone a seven- to nine-year prison sentence for witness tampering and lying to Congress. Trump also attacked the judge overseeing Stone’s case and the forewoman of the jury that convicted him. The Justice Department then asked for a reduced sentence. Four prosecutors resigned from the case in protest, and one quit the Justice Department.

Even Barr was driven to denounce Trump’s public interference in the legal system, saying that the president’s tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors and the department that we’re doing our work with integrity.” In response, Trump asserted that he has the “legal right” to determine who gets prosecuted — technically true but hardly in keeping with American tradition.

Barr’s protests ring hollow given how eager he has been to subvert his own department on Trump’s behalf — for example, by mischaracterizing the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Barr has appointed one prosecutor to review Flynn’s conviction and another to investigate the FBI and CIA personnel who uncovered the Russian plot to elect Trump in 2016. The New York Times reports that the latter prosecutor, John H. Durham, has raised alarm in the intelligence community by appearing to pursue a theory, popular among right-wing conspiracy mongers, “that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result.”

Anxiety about attempts to politicize justice will only grow because of a Post report that Trump was furious that the Justice Department did not file charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe — even though there is no evidence that either of these men broke any laws. After learning that his enemies were not being indicted, The Post reports, “Trump has become more insistent that Durham finish his work soon,” because he “wants to be able to use whatever Durham finds as a cudgel in his reelection campaign.”

As Justice Department veteran David Laufman writes, “We are now truly at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment for the Justice Dept.” But does anyone give a damn? Democratic lawmakers are, to be sure, perturbed, but it’s easy (if unfair) to write off their outrage as mere partisanship. Republican members of Congress, as usual, either have nothing to say or offer ineffectual expressions of “concern.”

And the public? I don’t see massive marches in the streets. I don’t see people flooding their members of Congress with calls and emails. I don’t see the outrage that is warranted — and necessary. I see passivity, resignation and acquiescence from a distracted electorate that has come to accept Trump’s aberrant behavior as the norm.

A recent Gallup poll found that Trump’s approval rating among Republicans — the supposed law-and-order party — is at a record-high 94 percent. His support in the country as a whole is only 43.4 percent in the FiveThirtyEight average, but he is still well positioned to win reelection, because most people seem to care a lot more about the strength of the stock market than about the strength of our democracy. This is how democracies die — not in darkness but in full view of a public that couldn’t care less.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/15/this-is-how-democracy-dies-full-view-public-that-couldnt-care-less/

[AUFAN78 3,894]

7 hours ago, homersapien said:

This is how democracy dies — in full view of a public that couldn’t care less

The French philosopher Montesquieu wrote in 1748: “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.” We are seeing his warning vindicated. President Trump is increasingly acting as a tyrannical (and erratic) prince. And yet much of the public is so inured to his misconduct that his latest assaults on the rule of law are met with a collective shrug. Public passivity is Trump’s secret weapon as he pursues his authoritarian agenda. “I have the right to do whatever I want,” he says, and the lack of pushback seems to confirm it.

So much bad has happened since Trump was unjustly acquitted by the Senate of two articles of impeachment on Feb. 5 that it’s hard to keep it all straight.

Trump fired Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for complying with a congressional subpoena and providing truthful testimony about Trump’s attempts to extort Ukraine into aiding him politically. Also ousted was Vindman’s brother, who did not testify. This sends a mob-like message: If you turn stool pigeon, your family gets it, too.

Trump’s ongoing quest for retribution has also claimed Jessie K. Liu, who was abruptly removed as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and replaced by a close aide to Attorney General William P. Barr after prosecuting Trump loyalists, including Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. Now Liu’s nomination to a senior Treasury Department position has been withdrawn. Next on the chopping block may be Elaine McCusker, the Pentagon official who tried to tell the Office of Management and Budget that Trump had no right to withhold aid to Ukraine. The New York Post reported that her nomination to be Pentagon comptroller will be withdrawn. (McCusker denies the report.)

While punishing those who dared to tell the truth, Trump is protecting those who assist his coverup. He inveighed against the request of federal prosecutors, following normal sentencing guidelines, to give Stone a seven- to nine-year prison sentence for witness tampering and lying to Congress. Trump also attacked the judge overseeing Stone’s case and the forewoman of the jury that convicted him. The Justice Department then asked for a reduced sentence. Four prosecutors resigned from the case in protest, and one quit the Justice Department.

Even Barr was driven to denounce Trump’s public interference in the legal system, saying that the president’s tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors and the department that we’re doing our work with integrity.” In response, Trump asserted that he has the “legal right” to determine who gets prosecuted — technically true but hardly in keeping with American tradition.

Barr’s protests ring hollow given how eager he has been to subvert his own department on Trump’s behalf — for example, by mischaracterizing the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Barr has appointed one prosecutor to review Flynn’s conviction and another to investigate the FBI and CIA personnel who uncovered the Russian plot to elect Trump in 2016. The New York Times reports that the latter prosecutor, John H. Durham, has raised alarm in the intelligence community by appearing to pursue a theory, popular among right-wing conspiracy mongers, “that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result.”

Anxiety about attempts to politicize justice will only grow because of a Post report that Trump was furious that the Justice Department did not file charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe — even though there is no evidence that either of these men broke any laws. After learning that his enemies were not being indicted, The Post reports, “Trump has become more insistent that Durham finish his work soon,” because he “wants to be able to use whatever Durham finds as a cudgel in his reelection campaign.”

As Justice Department veteran David Laufman writes, “We are now truly at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment for the Justice Dept.” But does anyone give a damn? Democratic lawmakers are, to be sure, perturbed, but it’s easy (if unfair) to write off their outrage as mere partisanship. Republican members of Congress, as usual, either have nothing to say or offer ineffectual expressions of “concern.”

And the public? I don’t see massive marches in the streets. I don’t see people flooding their members of Congress with calls and emails. I don’t see the outrage that is warranted — and necessary. I see passivity, resignation and acquiescence from a distracted electorate that has come to accept Trump’s aberrant behavior as the norm.

A recent Gallup poll found that Trump’s approval rating among Republicans — the supposed law-and-order party — is at a record-high 94 percent. His support in the country as a whole is only 43.4 percent in the FiveThirtyEight average, but he is still well positioned to win reelection, because most people seem to care a lot more about the strength of the stock market than about the strength of our democracy. This is how democracies die — not in darkness but in full view of a public that couldn’t care less.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/15/this-is-how-democracy-dies-full-view-public-that-couldnt-care-less/

No offense homes, but you should rid the nose ring and that wapo chain connected to it. They are jerking you around like a fool. Seek truth.

[LakeBum 187]

Not sure what the big controversy is with this case.  If the sentencing is not what the president thinks is just, he can always pardon the guy.  If folks aren't doing their job as they see fit, then shame on them.   Quitting your job is pointless.  It is like taking your ball and going home if you don't like the rules or the outcome.

[homersapien 11,366]

20 hours ago, AUFAN78 said:

No offense homes, but you should rid the nose ring and that wapo chain connected to it. They are jerking you around like a fool. Seek truth.

You obviously have nothing of substance to contribute.  Stick with the trash talk forum.