Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Stone sentencing to proceed
Barr lets it be known he’s fed up, sources say
WASHINGTON — A federal judge Tuesday refused to delay sentencing for Roger Stone on his witness tampering and lying to Congress conviction, as President Donald Trump kept up his defense of his longtime associate and said he wouldn’t be quieted on social media even if he’s making things harder for his attorney general.
Meanwhile, Attorney General William
Barr has told people close to the president — inside and outside the
White House — that he is considering quitting over Trump’s tweets about Justice Department investigations, three administration officials said.
It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether Barr had made his posture known directly to Trump. The administration officials said Barr seemed to be sharing his position with advisers in hopes that the president would get the message that he should stop weighing in publicly on the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal investigations.
“He has his limits,” said one person familiar with Barr’s thinking, speaking on condition of anonymity, like
others, to discuss internal deliberations.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. White House representatives did not respond to questions.
In the Stone case, Judge Amy Berman Jackson decided to sentence Stone on Thursday as scheduled. She said delaying sentencing “would not be a prudent thing to do.”
Stone’s defense team requested a new trial and asked Jackson to delay sentencing until she rules on that motion. The judge said she would allow the defense to file an amended motion for a new trial, give the government a chance to respond with its own filing and schedule a hearing if warranted. Defense lawyers are seeking to argue that juror misconduct led to an unfair trial.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department was represented in court by two senior prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia: John Crabb, the acting chief of the criminal division, and J.P. Cooney, the head of the fraud unit. They agreed with Jackson that sentencing should go forward this week.
A new set of prosecutors was in court Tuesday, because the original team resigned last week after Attorney General William Barr’s decision to overrule their recommendation that Stone serve at least seven years in prison.
Two of the four prosecutors had worked for former special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election dogged Trump for two years.
MUELLER TEAM ATTACKS
Trump attacked Mueller’s team anew Tuesday, saying that if he were not president, he would sue it.
Trump called that investigation “fraudulent,” adding: “If I wasn’t President, I’d be suing everyone all over the place.” Then he added in all capital letters “but maybe I still will.”
Asked about Trump’s talk of lawsuits, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Tuesday that “the president’s obviously frustrated.”
“For three years he has been under attack in one way or the other, and the Mueller report is another example of that,” Grisham said during an appearance on Fox & Friends, during which she also alluded to the Stone case. “I mean the foreperson of a jury was somebody who was very vocal about not liking President Trump or his supporters. … That’s scary stuff.”
Defense lawyers for Stone had demanded a new trial Friday, a day after Trump suggested that the forewoman in the federal case had “significant bias.”
Trump was referring to a former president of the Memphis City Schools board of commissioners and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress, Tomeka Hart.
Hart has identified herself as the forewoman of the jury in a Facebook post, saying she “can’t keep quiet any longer” in the wake of a Justice Department move to reduce its sentencing recommendation for Stone.
Barr’s move became public after Trump called the original sentencing recommendation “horrible and very unfair.” The president added in a tweet: “Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”
Barr later said in an ABC News interview that he had not been asked by Trump to look into the case but that the president’s tweets were making it “impossible” for him to do his job.
Stone, 67, was convicted last year of lying to Congress about his attempts to get details from Hillary Clinton’s private emails from WikiLeaks and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election.
Trump kept up his Twitter defense of Stone on Tuesday, before Jackson refused to delay sentencing and afterward, telling reporters at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, “I’m actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country, but I’ve chosen not to be involved.”
Trump insisted that he had not directly interfered in the prosecution of advisers like Stone and Michael Flynn, but declared again that he had the power to if he wanted, and at the very least he planned to speak out for them. “You take a look at what’s happening to these people,” he told reporters. “Somebody has to stick up for the people.”
The president told reporters Tuesday that Stone, a longtime friend and offand-on adviser, and Flynn, a campaign adviser before serving briefly as his national security adviser, were both “treated very unfairly.” He called Stone’s conviction “a very, very rough thing” and said Flynn’s “life has been destroyed.”
As he granted clemency Tuesday to figures like Rod Blagojevich, a former governor of Illinois; junk bond king Michael Milken; and former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, the president said he sympathized with them in what he characterized as overzealous prosecutions.
Asked whether he was likewise considering pardons for Stone, Flynn or Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman convicted on tax and other financial fraud charges, Trump said, “I’m not even thinking about that.”
BARR UNDER FIRE
As for his attorney general, Trump praised Barr as “a man with great integrity.” But the president also indicated that he planned to maintain the same Twitter presence even if it puts Barr in uncomfortable situations.
“I do make his job harder. I do agree with that,” Trump said. He dismissed the suggestion that he stop weighing in on individual cases. “Social media for me has been very important because it gives me a voice, because I don’t get that voice in the press,” he said. “In the media, I don’t get that voice. So I’m allowed to have a voice.”
Earlier, on Twitter, he said, “Everything having to do with this fraudulent investigation is badly tainted and, in my opinion, should be thrown out.”
Trump has complained privately for months about the Justice Department’s not charging those he considers political foes, and people familiar with the matter say he is particularly upset by the decision revealed last week not to charge former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe with lying to investigators exploring a media disclosure.
McCabe authorized the FBI to begin investigating Trump personally in 2017 for possible obstruction of justice in connection with the probe into whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia and suggested he might sue those involved. That case was ultimately taken over by Mueller.
Trump also has complained to associates that he has not been able to view the findings of U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked with examining the Russia probe’s origins. Durham’s probe is ongoing, and he has not yet prepared any report detailing his conclusions, a person familiar with the matter said.
People familiar with the matter said Trump has no plans to remove Barr as attorney general, despite his frustrations.
More than 2,000 former department employees signed a public letter over the weekend urging Barr to resign over his handling of the Stone case and exhorted current department employees to report any unethical conduct.
During her Fox News appearance, Grisham downplayed the significance of the letter from former Justice Department employees.
“Look, all across government, the president has been saying, and I think it’s been proven time and again, there are obstructionists all across this government who are working against the president,” Grisham said.
Grisham also dismissed a question about whether Barr might step down.
“That is not something I’m aware of, absolutely not,” she said.
Jan Miller, who was the U.S. attorney for central Illinois from 2002 until 2005 under President George W. Bush, said he signed in part to remind rank-and-file Justice Department employees “they’re not alone.”
“I’m sure it’s a very difficult time to be a line prosecutor in the department right now,” Miller said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also went to Barr’s defense in a joint statement.
“The nation is fortunate that President Trump chose such a strong and selfless public servant to lead the Department of Justice,” they wrote. “We expect that, as always, efforts to intimidate the Attorney General will fall woefully short.”
Information for this article was contributed by Ashraf Khalil and Kevin Freking of The Associated Press; by Peter Baker and Sharon LaFraniere of The New York Times; and by John Wagner, Matt Zapotosky, Spencer S. Hsu, Devlin Barrett and Rachel Weiner of The Washington Post.