The Exclusive Club Trump Seeks
to Join Possible
Excellent story here from Politico with this headline:
“Prosecutors say they were pressured to cut Roger Stone a break because of his ties to
Trump”
My introduction to this article. After reading it ask yourself: “What’s the bottom line here.”
Pretty Simple to Me: Most people
around Trump know his M.O. (e.g., he demands 100% loyalty, needs daily praise
and staff fluffing, and he can’t stand any level of criticism from anyone or
anywhere.
In short, those around him
are scared of his reactions against them if they violate any of Trump’s demands
or needs or wants.
The Impact is Pretty Simple,
too: Trump is not, very, very seldom ever held to account for his actions, nasty
deeds, treatment of people, or his blatant interference in legal matter before
any court like those for his BFF’s: Roger Stone and Michael Flynn just to name
two recent high-profile cases.
This Politico story
reinforces my views of Trump – here it is in part is the story in the
prosecutors own words:
A prosecutor who withdrew
from the Roger Stone case after Justice Department leaders intervened to
recommend a lighter sentence intends to testify before Congress that he and his
colleagues were repeatedly pressured to cut Stone “a break, and were told that it was because of his relationship with
President Donald Trump.”
Aaron Zelinsky, one of the four prosecutors who quit
the case, plans to tell the House
Judiciary Committee Wednesday (June 24) according to his prepared testimony:
“What I heard – repeatedly – was that
Roger Stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of
his relationship to the President, I was also told that the acting U.S.
Attorney was giving Stone such unprecedentedly favorable treatment because he
was afraid of the President.”
Zelinsky will appear alongside antitrust prosecutor John Elias, who plans to
testify that AG Barr personally ordered that Elias office to launch politically
motivated reviews of 10 cannabis mergers.
Zelinsky's testimony is a
stunning — and stunningly rare — public rebuke of DOJ’s leadership by a sitting
official. It comes as Barr is facing intensifying scrutiny over actions that
DOJ veterans and Democrats have described as dangerous breaches of the department's
independence from politics, and they did not respond to an immediate request
for comment.
Barr most recently set off
alarms when he sought a late to remove the top federal prosecutor in
Manhattan (SDNY), Attorney Geoff Berman, after falsely claiming that Berman had
agreed to step down voluntarily.
On Monday (June 22) Judiciary Committee
Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) began a process to subpoena Barr for a July 2
hearing, while House leaders also fended off some calls from progressive
Democrats to consider impeaching him.
Zelinsky alleges that after
Stone was convicted last year of repeatedly lying to Congress and intimidating
a witness, DOJ leaders leaned on him and three other Stone
prosecutors to deviate from typical sentencing practices.
The prosecutors had
been prepared in early February to file a steep sentencing recommendation that
they said reflected Stone's long-term lying to impede an investigation of
Russian interference in the 2016 election, a grave national security matter.
But DOJ leaders said they should break from department policy and issue a
lighter recommendation, Zelinsky says.
Zelinsky said: “We were told
by a supervisor that the U.S. Attorney had political reasons for his
instructions, which our supervisor agreed was unethical and wrong. However, we
were instructed that we should go along with the U.S. Attorney’s instructions,
because this case was “not the hill worth dying on and that we could lose our
jobs” if we did not toe the line.”
Full story at
the Politico link with a lot more information. Check it out.
My 2 cents: A stunning story to day the least and this dedicated
servants who seek justice for now being railroaded by AG Barr, who as we all
know is acting like Trump’s personal attorney and not for the public as a
whole; which BTW: Is his sworn duty, too.
It’s time to make an effort to remove Barr from office - ASAP would be
better than later. He has to be hands down the worst AG ever – hard to dispute
that reality isn’t it?
Thanks for stopping by.
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