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Democrats called earlier this week for the inspector general to investigate the dispute surrounding Stone’s sentence recommendation.¶
Democrat won’t rule out new Trump impeachment over Roger Stone case¶
Fox¶
By Brooke Singman and Marisa Schultz¶
2/13/2020¶
Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, in an interview Wednesday, would not rule out a new impeachment effort against President Trump over his alleged interference in the criminal case of his former associate Roger Stone.¶
Federal prosecutors on Monday had recommended a sentence of between 87 and 108 months in prison for Stone’s conviction on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress on charges that stemmed from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.¶
But in a stunning reversal, as Fox News first reported, leadership at the Justice Department overruled the prosecutors on the case, scaling back the proposed sentence for Stone, which immediately led Democrats to accuse Trump of interfering in the process by tweeting about his displeasure with the DOJ. Trump denies it, and the case lately has been complicated further by questions over possible juror bias.¶
During an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Swalwell, D-Calif., was asked whether Democrats would look to launch a new impeachment inquiry on the new controversy.¶
“You know, we’re not going to take our options off the table,” Swalwell, a member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, told CNN. “We don’t wake up in the morning wanting to impeach him.”¶
He added: “We want to work with him on prescription drugs, background checks, and infrastructure, but we’re not going to let him just torch this democracy because he thinks that he’s been let off once and we’re not going to do something about it.”¶
Swalwell’s comments come as several Democrats on Capitol Hill have demanded investigations — and even the resignation of Attorney General Bill Barr — after the move to scale back the Stone sentence.¶
“Congress must act immediately to rein in our lawless Attorney General,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted Wednesday. “Barr should resign or face impeachment.”¶
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also slammed Barr, saying he “ought to be ashamed and embarrassed and resign as a result of this action directly interfering in the independent prosecution of Roger Stone.” He also said the controversy was yet another example of “political interference by the president to alter the independent decisions of the Department of Justice.”¶
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., didn’t answer a question on whether Barr should resign but said: “I think the behavior is extremely egregious.”¶
The latest Democratic fervor comes after four career prosecutors withdrew from the Stone case, including one quitting outright, after leadership at the Justice Department (DOJ) overruled them.¶
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., immediately called for an investigation into Trump’s alleged political intervention into Stone’s sentencing.¶
Schumer also took to the Senate floor and torched Senate Republicans who acquitted Trump on two articles of impeachment for enabling Trump’s conduct.¶
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“Republicans thought the president would learn his lesson,” Schumer said in a veiled jab at Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “It turned out that the lesson he learned was not that he went too far — not that he needed to rein it in. The lesson the president learned was that the Republican Party will not hold him accountable no matter how egregious his behavior. Not now, not ever.”¶
But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham wasn’t too keen on Schumer’s demand for an emergency hearing.¶
“Like I take everything with him [with] a grain of salt,” said Graham, R-S.C.¶
Fresh off of weeks of impeachment, Democrats raised similar alarm bells and phrases as during the Ukraine saga, saying the Stone matter is another example of political interference, abuse of power and President Trump thinking he’s above the law.¶
Lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff ripped Trump for trying to influence the judicial system.¶
“It’s a shocking undermining of the rule of law in this country,” Schiff said, adding it’s “an abuse of the powers of his office.”¶
Another impeachment manager, lawyer and former judge, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, told Fox News: “This president’s behavior is just totally out of control. This is one of the most egregious things that I’ve ever seen.”¶
She stopped short of calling for Barr’s resignation but said: “We can’t sit back and not do something. The question is what.”¶
She ticked off the oversight tools House Democrats still have.¶
“It’s hearings. It’s investigation. It’s litigation. It’s subpoenas. It’s contempt. It’s all the same ones we’ve always had, but it’s a question of making sure that we’re strategic in what we do,” she said.¶
However, Trump on Wednesday denied interfering in Stone’s criminal case, while declining to say whether he’d consider a pardon for the GOP political operative.¶
“The fact is that Roger Stone was treated horribly and so were many other people,” Trump said. “Their lives were destroyed.”¶
“I want to thank the Justice Department — and I didn’t speak to them, by the way — they saw a nine-year sentence… nine years for something nobody can even define what he did,” Trump continued. “They put a man in jail, destroy his life, his family, his wife.”¶
He added: “Roger Stone — nobody even knows what he did… Frankly, they ought to apologize to a lot of people whose lives they’ve ruined.”¶
Stone is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Feb. 20.¶
Earlier this month, after a weeks-long Senate trial, the president was acquitted on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in connection to his pressure campaign on Ukraine to investigate Democrats.¶
Trump Escalates Crisis With Attack On Roger Stone Jury Foreman¶
TPM¶
By Josh Kovensky¶
2/13/2020¶
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President Trump adopted as his own attacks on the foreperson of the jury in the prosecution of GOP provocateur Roger Stone on Thursday, bringing his interference in the case of a former campaign adviser to a new level.¶
Trump appears to have been triggered by attacks in the right-wing press that began to percolate Wednesday night, attempting to discredit Stone’s guilty verdict on charges of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress as the product of “bias” on the part of the jury foreperson.¶
“The President oughta just butt out of it and let the process work its course,” Mark W. Bennett, a former Iowa federal judge, told TPM. “There are going to be jurors that are Democrats, Republicans, Independents; just because somebody is registered as a Democrat or active in the Democratic party doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be fair in the case.”¶
The President’s involvement in the case marks a new high water mark in his interference in the criminal justice system to help a longtime ally and associate, in a week already marred by the Justice Department rescinding a sentencing recommendation of 7–9 years for Stone after the President expressed displeasure.¶
“The President is totally out of control,” William Yeomans, a former deputy assistant attorney general, told TPM, adding that Trump was trying to “rewrite history” and “delegitimize” the convictions that came out of the Mueller investigation.¶
The current spate of attacks on the jury foreperson come one day after an unsealed order in Stone’s case showed that the GOP operative’s defense team had pushed for a retrial, alleging that another juror in the case was tainted.¶
The judge quickly denied that request, noting that Stone’s legal team was afforded the chance at the start of the trial to select jurors and remove potential members of the jury.¶
“When jurors come to court, they don’t have to be totally ignorant, they can be aware of public affairs, they can have lives outside the jury,” Yeomans said. “The only question is whether they are capable of putting aside preconceived beliefs, and coming to an honest conclusion based on the facts and the law,” he added.¶
Under the federal criminal justice system, Stone’s defense had the same right to do that as prosecutors, all under the supervision of an impartial judge — in this case District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.¶
The current batch of allegations began to appear late Wednesday evening. The jury foreperson made a Facebook post expressing support for the professionalism of the four prosecutors who resigned in protest from the case this week, thereby revealing her identity.¶
Right-wing operatives and media organizations immediately jumped on the juror’s background, accusing the person of being an operative of the Democratic Party.¶
Neither the articles nor President Trump have mentioned that Stone’s attorneys were afforded the opportunity at the start of his November 2019 trial to examine each potential juror in depth, and request that potential jury members that they found unsuitable be removed from the case.¶
Trump’s decision to sign onto the attack marks not only an escalation in his meddling in the Stone case, but a change in direction; while the President’s actions this week have gone towards preventing federal prosecutors from demanding a tough sentence for Stone, in this case, Trump is directing his attack at the judiciary, a separate branch of government meant to remain impartial.¶
“In this new Wild West in which we’re living, everybody is open to attack,” Yeomans added. “So jurors may be game, and that’s disturbing, but I hope that the jurors will continue to understand that they are protected, there are safeguards, and they have to decide cases based on the facts and the law.”¶