JUSTICE TRUMPED
DON KEEPS SLEAZY PAL STONE OUT OF JAIL
President Trump used the power of his office on Friday to save his longtime pal Roger Stone from having to go to prison next week by commuting the disgraced Republican trickster’s 40month sentence in an extraordinary reversal of justice.
The presidential commutation, which drew immediate outrage from Democrats, came just four days before Stone was supposed to report to prison in Georgia.
“Roger Stone has already suffered greatly,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement announcing the commutation. “He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!”
Stone, 67, was convicted in 2019 for lying to Congress about his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, obstructing justice and threatening a witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
As part of his trial, Justice Department prosecutors argued Stone lied and obstructed justice to protect Trump because the truth “would look really bad” for the president.
Stone — whose conviction stands under Trump’s decision — tried to get in touch with WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange in 2016 to get an idea of when he was going to release emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign by Russian hackers.
The Russians provided the emails to WikiLeaks as part of a plot to damage Clinton’s campaign and help Trump win, according to the U.S. intelligence community.
Though Trump did not go so far as to pardon Stone, he and his allies insist his prosecution was a political hit-job.
“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency,” said McEnany.
Jerome Corsi, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who helped Stone get in touch with Assange, told the Daily News that Stone got convicted because of an “unequal” justice system.
“Leftists get a pass lying,” Corsi said.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), whose committee Stone lied to, said Friday’s commutation posed “the most offensive” act that Trump has committed to “the rule of law and principles of justice” since taking office.
“With this commutation, Trump makes clear that there are two systems of justice in America: one for his criminal friends, and one for everyone else,” Schiff said in a statement. “Donald Trump, [Attorney General] Bill Barr, and all those who enable them pose the gravest of threats to the rule of law.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) promised an investigation of Trump’s decision. “By commuting his sentence, President Trump has infected our judicial system with partisanship and cronyism and attacked the rule of law. @HouseJudiciary will conduct an aggressive investigation into this brazen corruption,” Nadler tweeted.
Trump made no secret that he was thinking of pardoning or commuting the sentence of Stone. He told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday that it was a “disgrace they didn’t give him a retrial.” Asked if he was considering a pardon, Trump replied: “I am always thinking.”
Stone learned of the commutation in a phone call from Trump on Friday, the Associated Press reported.
He celebrated the commutation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. with conservative friends — and as he spoke to the AP, he said he had to change rooms because there were “too many people opening bottles of Champagne here.”