OUTRAGE AS TRUMP LETS EX-ADVISER WALK FREE
Democrats dub quashing jail term a ‘staggering corruption’, says Jonathan Lemire in Washington
US president Donald Trump’s intervention into a criminal case connected to his own conduct drew fierce rebukes yesterday from Democrats and a few lonely Republicans, with calls for investigations and legislation.
But it remained to be seen if Trump’s most recent defiance of the conventions of his office to commute the sentence of political confidant Roger Stone, just four months before the US election, would matter to American voters grappling with a deadly Covid-19 surge and divided by a national discourse on racial justice.
Shortly before heading out yesterday morning for his Virginia golf club, Trump made unfounded accusations against his political foes while taking another swipe at special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which led to convictions for six Trump aides or advisers, including Stone — a larger-than-life political character who embraced his reputation as a dirty trickster.
“Roger Stone was targeted by an illegal Witch Hunt that never should have taken place,” Trump tweeted. “It is the other side that are criminals, including Biden and Obama, who spied on my campaign — AND GOT CAUGHT!”
Trump has long sought vengeance against the
Russia investigation that helped define his first two years in office. And now that the pandemic has imperiled his reelection chances by crushing the economy and sending his poll numbers sliding, he has taken to testing the limits of his power in order to reward loyalty of his minions and fire up his conservative base.
The decision to commute the sentence of the 67-year-old Stone, who was convicted of lying to help the president and was set to report to prison on Tuesday, was loudly celebrated by some in Trump’s orbit as a triumph over deep state prosecutorial overreach.
But the move announced on Friday evening came over the advice of a number of the president’s senior advisers, who warned him it would be politically self-destructive to reward Stone for his silence. Trump had long floated the idea of clemency for Stone — as well as for other associates in legal trouble, including his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign chairman Paul Manafort — which itself was viewed by some as witness tampering by encouraging them not to cooperate with prosecutors.
The reaction from Democrats was swift and furious. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday called it “an act of staggering corruption,” saying legislation is needed to prevent a president from pardoning or commuting the sentence of someone who acted to shield that president from prosecution. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff called it “offensive to the rule of law and principles of justice.”
And Trump’s Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, resurfaced a 2019 tweet in which he said that “Trump has surrounded himself with people who flout our laws — we shouldn’t be surprised that he thinks he is above the law.” He added: “Still true.”
Republicans largely stayed silent on the issue yesterday— reluctant again to challenge a president who remains very popular with rank-and-file GOP voters. But one loud voice was
Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who was also the lone GOP senator to vote to convict the president during his impeachment trial earlier this year.
“Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president,” he tweeted.
And Mark Sanford, the former congressman who made a short-lived primary challenge to Trump, wrote:
“So much for the Republican Party being the party of law and order. Have we not lost our minds in not condemning as a party the president’s corruption by Roger Stone.”
But most of Republicans who did speak out about the decision supported it. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump confidant, said Stone was convicted of a “nonviolent, firsttime offense” and the president was “justified” in commuting the sentence.
Advisers who had previously talked Trump out of acting on Stone’s behalf awaited the possible fallout, but they considered that Congress may be too
consumed with virus relief packages while wondering if the electorate long ago tuned out any talk of the complicated Russia investigation, particularly during a pandemic.
But Trump likely could not afford more political damage. He is decidedly trailing Biden, per his campaign’s own private admissions, and his effort to reboot his reelection bid took another blow when his planned rally yesterday night in New Hampshire was postponed. Campaign officials had deeply worried about low turnout. While an impending storm was blamed for the cancellation, sunny skies were seen in Portsmouth an hour before Trump had been due to arrive.
By commuting Stone’s sentence, Trump evoked other controversial acts of clemency by his predecessors, though his was done in the height of an election year.
Former president George H W Bush pardoned former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger on Christmas Eve 1992, six weeks after he was defeated for reelection, prompting an uproar from Democrats and the independent counsel investigating the IranContra affair. And former president Bill Clinton waited until his final hours in office in 2001 to issue a raft of pardons, including of financier Marc Rich.
But one president who resisted the use of pardon was Richard Nixon, who privately discussed acts of clemency but never followed through even as many of his associates faced legal trouble during the Watergate scandal.
A few months after resigning, Nixon himself received a pardon from his successor Gerald Ford.
The commutation was the latest example of Trump using his unlimited clemency power to pardon powerful men he believes have been mistreated by the justice system.
Trump went on a clemency spree in February, commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, and pardoning former
New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik, financier Michael Milken and several others.
Trump has also offered clemency to other political allies, including Joe Arpaio, an Arizona sheriff who was awaiting sentencing at the time; conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who had been convicted on campaign finance violations; and Conrad Black, a newspaper publisher convicted of fraud who had written a flattering book about Donald.
Trump, however, has spent much more time trumpeting his decision to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving life in prison for non-violent drug offences and who came to Trump’s attention after Kim Kardashian took up her cause. Her story was featured in a Trump campaign Super Bowl ad.
Yesterday Stone told reporters he had expressed his gratitude to Trump in a phone call.
“You know, he has a great sense of fairness,” Stone said. “We’ve been friends for many, many years, and he understands that I was targeted strictly for political reasons.
“The president told me that he had decided, in an act of clemency, to issue a full commutation of my sentence, and he urged me to vigorously pursue my appeal and my vindication,” Stone said by phone from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was celebrating with friends. He said he had to change rooms because there were “too many people opening bottles of champagne here”.
Although a commutation does not nullify Stone’s felony convictions, it protects him from serving prison time as a result.