Maybe they will build a whole new cellblock to house all of Trump’s former cronies.
Courtesy of Politico:
Federal prosecutors are urging that longtime Donald Trump adviser and Republican political provocateur Roger Stone be sent to prison for about seven to nine years for his conviction on charges of lying and witness tampering during investigations of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
The stern recommendation is starkly at odds with a suggestion from Stone’s defense team that he should be sentenced to probation — and no jail time — in the case.
Following a weeklong trial last November, a Washington jury found Stone guilty on all seven felony counts he faced: five of making false statements to Congress, one of obstruction of Congress, and one of witness tampering with both the House Intelligence Committee inquiry and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
In a sentencing filing Monday, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington argued that Stone’s conduct was exceptionally sinister because of the importance of those investigations and the danger of overseas influence on U.S. elections.
And yet Trump himself totally escapes all accountability for his actions.
Ain’t that a bitch?
I think Michael Flynn saw what Trump did and now assumes there is no right and wrong anymore.
Courtesy of CNN:
Federal prosecutors want to use Michael Flynn’s former defense lawyers against him as they resist his attempts to get out of his guilty plea for lying to the FBI in 2017.
The court filing from prosecutors on Sunday could bring a new and consequential twist in the Flynn case, aligning the Justice Department and a major force in DC’s legal establishment against President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser. The filings even hint that DOJ would be willing to charge Flynn with perjury, or to take Flynn to trial if the judge allowed him to change his plea to not guilty.
The latest tussle in the case prompted District Judge Emmet Sullivan on Monday to cancel the date Flynn was scheduled to be sentenced, dragging a relatively straightforward plea deal case on indefinitely. Flynn’s sentencing was initially set for February 27, but Sullivan now plans to allow at least two more weeks to weigh arguments and for Flynn’s new lawyers and prosecutors to negotiate over the use of the former defense team’s information in future proceedings.
Flynn was charged in December 2018 and was originally set to be sentenced last December, until he asked for a delay during the sentencing hearing.
Keep in mind that Flynn already pleaded guilty and even cooperated with the Mueller investigation, and now he is trying to rewrite history so that he never ratted out his former boss and never said he was guilty.
How does that work?
Rachel Maddow suspects the fix is in.
The plot thickens.
Attorney General Barr now moves to install one of his top aides as the new US Attorney in the office prosecuting Flynn:https://t.co/6kiMF7Zmp7
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) January 30, 2020
We need to watch and see how this plays out.
At this point nothing would surprise me.
Update: Well since I posted this the Justice Department seems to have had a change of heart.
Courtesy of WaPo:
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 will surely raise 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.”
Sounds to me as if Bill Barr is working his magic behind the scenes.
“Corn Pop” gives up on New Hampshire before polls close and heads to South Carolina.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/joe-biden-gives-up-on-new-hampshire-before-polls-close-heads-to-south-carolina
The Washington Examiner is a conservative rag. You might as well quote Fox News.
So says The Hill, NBC News, MSNBC, ABC News, WCVB Boston, The New York Post, Politico, CNN, AP News, and CBS News to name a few others. Nice try though, Buckaroo.
WAPO has an update on sentencing and drumpf’s meddling in the case, unfortunately it is behind a paywall. The Guardian, however, released this….., The president sent his message a little before 2am on Tuesday, after a rally in New Hampshire and a visit to Delaware to honour two US soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, it seemed the tweet would have its desired effect.
The Washington Post quoted a “senior justice department official” as saying: “The department finds the recommendation extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone’s offences. The department will clarify its position later today.”
The Post characterised the move as “a stunning rebuke of career prosecutors that will surely raise questions about political meddling in the case”.
As for soldiers, doktoe drumpf won’t refrain from calling severe head trauma to over 100 soldiers more than headache. How is it this POS is not in prison?
The US attorney overseeing the Stone prosecution happens to be a very close associate of Barrs and Barr is essentially trashing his bud and criticizing his work, all the while pretending drumpf’s blistering tweet about the unfairness of stone’s sentencing had nothing to do with basically allowing stone to go free.
Here we go again…. https://www.mediaite.com/news/mueller-prosecutor-withdraws-from-roger-stone-case-after-doj-plans-reversal-in-sentencing/ Attorney for DOJ who worked with Mueller and on the Stone case resigned from the DOJ and Stone case when he learned his work was being played politically by Barr.
Get a load of this shit from DOJ about precious Mr Stone and his actions…… The new filing — which isn’t signed by any of the four prosecutors who endorsed the original sentencing memo before announcing their departure from the case on Tuesday — takes a more sympathetic view of Stone’s crimes. It suggests that Stone may not have truly threatened to injure his associate Randy Credico, even though a jury had found him guilty of intimidating him.
The filing says Stone’s “advanced age, health, personal circumstances and lack of criminal history” weigh in favor of a lesser sentence. The prosecutors point to other cases, including that of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who received more lenient sentences for witness intimidation, false statements and obstruction of justice.
The DC US Attorney’s Office now argues that Judge Amy Berman Jackson should effectively discount Stone’s social media posts following his arrest, including one threatening her, when deciding his sentence.
In their previous argument that Stone should get seven to nine years in prison, prosecutors had noted that Stone posted an image on Instagram of Jackson with crosshairs behind her head, contradicted himself under oath in a court hearing about the Instagram post, and violated the judge’s orders not to speak publicly about the case should merit him more prison time.
BTW, all four federal prosecutors of Stone quit the case and two resigned from Justice.
But the new court filing on Thursday says those actions shouldn’t add to Stone’s sentence.
“
They’re all going to be pardoned anyway.
Why oh WHY can’t the effing media do their jobs calling this out. We already know that answer.
I thought donnie was going to pardon Roger
Nope. Not any more. Seems Trumpty Dumpty thinks that is very unfair. So Barr has stepped in and as a result four of the prosecutors have quit the case and one has actually resigned from the DOJ.
https://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-feds-back-away-171754466.html
“The four lawyers who prosecuted Roger Stone quit the case Tuesday after the Justice Department overruled them and said it would take the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it would seek for President Donald Trump’s longtime ally and confidant.”
“The four attorneys, including two who were early members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia team, comprised the entire Justice Department trial team that won convictions against Stone last fall.
Each had signed onto a Monday sentencing memo that recommended between seven and nine years in prison for Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election. None lent their names to a Tuesday memo that called the original recommendation excessive.”
Aaron Zelinsky, a Mueller team member, quit the case and his job in Washington, with plans to return to his position as a federal prosecutor in Baltimore.
Another early Mueller team member, Adam Jed, also withdrew from the case. His status at the Justice Department was not clear.
Another federal prosecutor in Washington, Michael Marando, withdrew from the case, and a fourth trial team member, Jonathan Kravis, resigned his position as an assistant U.S. attorney.”