Super Takedown Of NeverTrumps And Team Mueller

Right, that's a pretty broad title. What I'm talking about is shipwreckedcrew's brutal deconstruction of a David French article on the supposed scandal of Trump commuting Roger Stone's sentence:

David French Reveals The Depth Of Intellectual Dishonesty Needed For The NeverTrumpers’ Vituperation of Roger Stone

The article is an absolutely brutal evisceration of French, but it also gets into the dishonesty of the Mueller Report and everything that flowed from it. Here's how shipwreckedcrew starts out:

David French has written a deeply dishonest story today about the prosecution of Roger Stone, and how the commutation of his sentence by Pres. Trump doesn’t change the “facts” of the case. 

Well, if you’re looking for “facts”, David French’s “story” isn’t the place to start. 

“Mueller’s investigation revealed Stone’s contacts with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and hacker Guccifer 2.0 during the 2016 campaign.” 

So, what did Mueller’s investigation “reveal” on this question?

The answer to that question, as shipwreckedcrew demonstrates in detail, is that Stone had NO contacts with Julian Assange--not even through intermediaries such as Jerome Corsi. As for the supposed GRU hacker Guccifer 2.0, those contacts amounted to the merest handful of texts--initiated by the Guccifer persona--culminating in Stone stating that he was unimpressed with the material Guccifer had released. Quoting the Mueller Report (p. 44):

On September 9, 2016, the GRU – again posing as Guccifer 2.0 – referring to the stolen DCCC documents posted online and asked Stone “what do u think of the info on the turnout model for democrats entire presidential campaign.”  Stone responded “pretty standard.”

And having untangled all the various stories surrounding these supposed but actually NON-events, shipwreckedcrew concludes:

Trump Commutes Stone's Sentence

UPDATED: That is per John Cardillo:

En route to #RogerStone’s house for celebratory drinks. 

Justice was done by @realDonaldTrump tonight.

Given all the circumstances, seems fair to me.

UPDATE: What were "all the circumstances"? Shipwrecked crew lays it out, so I don't have to go digging up old posts:

I’m curious about your position here. You think this is just an “Orange Man Bad” thing? Nothing at all about the president commuting a sentence of a man who lied to Congress, and was convicted of 7 felonies directly connected to his lying for/protecting said president? 

How was [Stone] "protecting" POTUS??  What did his lies "cover-up"?  What he covered up was that he'd been lying to Trump and the campaign about having a connection to Wikileaks -- he didn't.  His lies to Congress were to cover his earlier lies -- not to cover up complicity by Trump. 

What the Roger Stone case was about: 

1.  A "stick in the eye" to Trump as the SCO's sign off when they realized they weren't going to get him. 

2.  Forcing Bannon and Gates to testify about Stone falsely bragging about a connection to Assange/Wiki, and that he spoke with Trump. 

What the case was never about: 

1.  Misleading the Devin Nunes House Intel Comm in 2017. 

Remember that -- the "false statements" made to Cong. were before Adam Schiff was Chairman.  Don't believe anything about Stone coming of out Schiff's mouth.

And Andy McCarthy draws attention to a year old article that lays out the whole Mueller scam pretty clearly--Stone indictment makes clear there was no Trump-Russia conspiracy:

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of Roger Stone elucidates what has been apparent to the public for a year, and therefore must have been known to prosecutors and the FBI for much longer: There was no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian government. ... 

In the Stone indictment, Mueller offers up 20 pages of heavy-breathing narrative about the Russian theft of tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, the transmission of the purloined materials to WikiLeaks (portrayed as a witting arm of the Putin regime), and their subsequent media publication in the final weeks of the campaign. But the big wind produces no rain. At the end, we get a couple of pages of process crimes. 

Stone is charged with such comparative trifles as concealing from Congress that his communications with an associate were in writing. The seven counts are offenses generated not by an espionage conspiracy but by the investigation of an espionage conspiracy that did not exist. 

Not one that “may not have existed.” The Trump-Russia conspiracy did not exist.

This should not be controversial. It should not matter whether you like Donald Trump. ... It is simply a matter of reading the special counsel’s indictments, of seeing through their ambitious storytelling and grappling with what they actually charge. 

It is very simple. If the Trump campaign had been in an espionage conspiracy with Russia to hack Democratic email accounts, why would the campaign have needed Stone to try to figure out what stolen information WikiLeaks had and when it would release that information?

Of course, everyone who mattered in Washington--including the GOP leaders--knew this as well.

Stone Seeks To Disqualify Judge

This can be brief. Stone has already been sentenced, so it's hard to see that he has much to lose:

Alex Salvi
@alexsalvinews 

NEW: Roger Stone has filed a motion to disqualify the judge in his case. 

His lawyers allege her remarks about jurors at his sentencing suggest she is not impartial in regard to whether a juror improperly served on his case.

9:44 PM · Feb 21, 2020

Kyle Cheney
@kyledcheney

JUST IN: Roger Stone is moving to force Judge Amy Berman Jackson to recuse herself because she praised the jurors for serving with "integrity."

Stone says she can't rule fairly on his motion for a new trial (based on juror bias) because of this.

9:31 PM · Feb 21, 2020

UPDATED: Free Roger Stone!

That's the title of a brilliant article by former Clinton pollster and adviser Mark Penn. I've expressed strong misgivings about two of AG Bill Barr's recent statements: 1) That President Trump has made his (Barr's) job "impossible", and 2) that the Roger Stone prosecution was "righteous." Both statements are essentially indefensible--despite what even some conservatives have said about the Stone prosecution. Penn gets right to the heart of both of Barr's statements.

Attorney General William Barr is right that presidential tweets on Department of Justice (DOJ) cases make his job difficult in today’s super-charged political environment. But President Trump is also right that the case of his associate, Roger Stone, is nothing but a political prosecution that, until the president tweeted about it, got little attention or examination.

Ask yourself: Is it part of the Chief Executive's duty to point out to the American people when justice is being perverted by blatantly political prosecutions? I think it is. I think a core responsibility of any president is to speak truth to the American people about matters of great public importance. Why would Bill Barr disagree with a president performing his core responsibilities with integrity? To distance himself from a president who is attacked and smeared by the same media and left wing organizations who support political prosecutions? Such distancing acts will gain Barr no reprieve from those who are after his scalp. The honest and honorable course is to forthrightly agree with the president and explain why the president is right--not try to deflect attention from himself toward the president, which is the effect of complaining of the "impossibility" of working for an honest president.

For all the hullabaloo about Trump’s tweets, which are nothing more than an expression of opinion, remember that in five of the last six special or independent counsel investigations, such interventions were not at all unusual. ...

Again, ask yourself: Does Barr regard President Trump as an exception among presidents? What would be Barr's problem with defending the president's true statements, with which Barr himself agreed, except a clumsy attempt to imply that he's not what he is: a political appointee of that president who serves at that president's pleasure? Barr has the same recourse that every political appointee who disagrees with any president has.

Is Barr's displeasure because he thinks Trump was wrong about the political nature of the Stone prosecution? Well, Penn--a Democrat and recovering Clintonista--has a lot to say about that. Here Penn gets to the heart of the absurd and unjust use of "false statements" (1001) prosecutions:

Federal Judges Association Wimps Out

H/T TGP which links to CNN, reporting that the Federal Judges Association that had scheduled an "emergency meeting" to discuss the interventions of Trump and Barr in the Roger Stone case has "postponed" their emergency meeting. Tuesday morning Trump had tweeted:

“I hope the Federal Judges Association will discuss the tremendous FISA Court abuse that has taken place with respect to the Mueller Investigation Scam, including the forging of documents and knowingly using the fake and totally discredited Dossier before the Court. Thank you!”

From the CNN report:

A group of federal judges hastily postponed an emergency meeting that was scheduled to take place Wednesday to discuss concerns about President Donald Trump and the Justice Department’s intervention in politically charged cases. 

Megan Cruz, the executive director of the Federal Judges Association, said the meeting was set to occur Wednesday afternoon and the group was considering whether to issue a statement afterwards. But later in the day, Cruz said that the conference call between the 14 judges who serve as officers on the Executive Committee had been postponed. 

Cruz offered no further details and did not respond to questions asking whether the group had been asked to reschedule the meeting …

1. Federal judges--wimps. Just like other bureaucrats. It's easy to be brave and speak to power when everybody scrapes and bows and calls you 'Your honor.' Not so much when you realize that you could end up on the receiving end from someone with a bully pulpit who never backs down.

2. Perhaps Barr will reflect that there's something to be said for a President who uses Twitter and who has his back. Barr would have been taking this flack even if Trump hadn't said/tweeted a word about the Stone sentencing.

3. I'd also bet that many judges gave the officers of the association an earful.

Recommended Reads For Presidents Day: The Use Of Prosecutors

Two recommended reads that provide additional insights into the way the office of prosecutor fits into the progressive scheme for societal and political transformation. The two, of course, go hand in hand.

First, Andrew McCarthy weighs in:

UPDATED: About The Stone Jury

I've been looking around for a good summary of what's been coming out about several members of the Stone jury empaneled by Judge Amy Berman Jackson. A good, brief, but informative post can be found at Zerohedge: Lead Juror In Roger Stone Trial Was Left-Wing Former Political Candidate Who Despises Trump.

Here are a few important points--which you can read more about at the link. Techno-Fog notes that much will center around how the jurors answered the court questionnaire, which asks questions about things like ... political activity (running for office), social media activity, interest in the Russia Hoax (Mueller), etc. At this point we don't know how the jurors--and especially the foreman, Tomeka Hart, a leftwing activist who participated in anti-Trump protests--answered those questions.

However, Mike Cernovich offers what should be highly relevant information:

Meanwhile, Hart - who was a Democratic congressional candidate in Tennessee in 2012 [photo with Donna Brazile at the time], has a Twitter history littered with anti-Trump propaganda and was actively posting on social media during the trial. This, as attorney and journalist @Techno_Fog points out, raises questions over how she responded to the juror questionnaire which asked specific questions regarding social media, the Mueller investigation, and running for public office. 

Her Twitter feed shows dozens of references to Trump, many of them links to negative stories about the Republican. In a Twitter post on Aug. 19, 2017, Hart quoted a tweet referring to Trump as the “#KlanPresident,” in an apparent reference to the KKK. -Daily Caller

In a trial that was strongly focused on Trump, this is important, because Hart's during-the-trial tweets were strongly anti-Trump. A Hart tweet on the day of Stone's guilty verdict also suggests that her political biases played an important role--the tweet is nothing but four emoticons: two red hearts (denoting joy?) and two clenched fists appearing to belong to "people of color." So, political bias and racial bias, all in one tweet. For Hart the verdict seems to have been viewed as a blow against the white GOP Klan presidency klique, as it were.

What Actually Happened In the Stone Case?

Emailer Jim just sent me an article that states categorically what happened in the Stone case with the sentencing memorandum. Here's the article: What Happened In the Roger Stone Case? 'Prosecutorial Misconduct' Says Defense Lawyer.

The defense lawyer who was consulted by the author happens to be Jesse Binnall, who is part of Sidney Powell's team defending Michael Flynn and is a high profile defense attorney in his own right. He has dealt with one of the four Stone prosecutors in the past.

Here's the relevant exchange:

I went to federal trial attorney Jesse Binnall for some answers. Binnall defends high-profile clients against political witch-hunts and has defended cases brought by Jonathan Kravis in the past. Currently, Binnall is defending Michael Flynn alongside Sidney Powell. 

In your professional opinion, was anything unusual about the Roger Stone case?  

"Roger Stone wouldn't ever have been a target of prosecution had he not been a Trump supporter. The President was absolutely right; the political underpinnings of this case are very disturbing. The events of the past few days show just how unusual this case really is." 

Can you explain what exactly was unusual in recent days, and why? 

"These four prosecutors filed a brief making a sentencing recommendation without getting approval from the chain of command. That is extraordinarily unusual in the DOJ. In fact, I can say it's unheard of at the DOJ; certainly, I've never heard of it. In practice, DOJ lawyers almost always get approval for everything they do." 

Then, all four prosecutors on this case withdrew in succession, with one, Kravis, resigning from the DOJ entirely. This is unheard of. Why do you think they did it? Do you believe they planned and colluded? 

"I think they knew exactly what was going to happen when they filed that sentencing recommendation, expecting they will be reined in for doing so. They could then play the role of martyrs by resigning from the case, with one of them resigning entirely from his job.  

One of the most serious powers of a prosecutor is asking to deprive a defendant of freedom, requesting jail time. I think this [nine-year sentence] was an abuse of their power as prosecutors, to make a recommendation like this without making a departmental approval. 

They knew leftist media would celebrate their disobedience and abuse of power. Leftist media has a history of fawning over people who martyr themselves for left-wing causes, just like Sally Yates. I think they wanted to leave the Roger Stone case with a bang. 

So what the prosecutors did may not have been a direct lie, although I might argue that there is an implicit lie in submitting a recommendation to the judge bearing the name of USA Shea, when Shea had no knowledge of the recommendation. I don't know what the DoJ guidelines are for prosecutors in that regard, whether the prosecutors violated any departmental guidelines. I have to believe that they did. That explains why DoJ said they were "blindsided" by the recommendation, but that hardly seems to be a strong enough reaction.

No doubt we'll get the full story from Barr, who will be totally unapologetic when he testifies.

OH!

Per Axios: Trump pulls nomination for former U.S. attorney for D.C. to Treasury post.

That would be Jessie Liu, the controversial--from a conservative standpoint--FORMER United States Attorney for DC. Do you get the idea that Trump feels unbound after the absurd Impeachment Theater?

President Trump is withdrawing his nomination for former U.S. attorney for D.C. Jessie Liu to serve as the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, a top position overseeing economic sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge. 

... 

Liu was expected to stay in her position through her confirmation — with a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee scheduled for this Thursday — but was unexpectedly informed last month that Attorney General Bill Barr was replacing her with his close adviser Timothy Shea. 

She was informed that Trump was pulling her nomination Tuesday afternoon.

Behind the scenes: This was "the president's call," according to a former administration official familiar with the situation. The decision, which was made today, has administration officials questioning the circumstances that led to Trump changing his mind — with the developments in the Roger Stone case today being the only possible one they are aware of.

I'm getting the idea that the Dems and Team Mueller thought they were pulling a fast one, and that Liu was part of it somehow. Trump was having none of it.

UPDATE: Listening to Lou Dobbs and Devin Nunes. Nunes is ELATED that the Liu nomination has been pulled. Good enough for me.

Nunes then goes on to state clearly that the Stone prosecution was a fraud built on a hoax. And he compares it directly to the James Wolfe joke prosecution.

And then this:

Rep. Devin Nunes: Let me tell you something else… The lawyers who stepped down today the prosecutors who suggested 7 to 9 for Roger Stone. We believe that this is not going to be the only example. We believe there is other examples of things they did during the Mueller investigation that I think you and your listeners and the American people will be very interested to learn in the coming weeks. As we start to unpeel the onion of what the Mueller team was really doing. Because I would say this, when Mueller was appointed we have to ask ourselves, he walks in the door the first day and he said, “OK, show me all the evidence you got on the Russians?” They’re like, “Bob, sorry we don’t have any Russians here. We don’t have any evidence.” So what the hell did they do for two years? They set up an obstruction of justice trap. And they went after a whole lot of people who have now got sentenced. Some already served their time. And I think all of this has to be called into question now.

UPDATED: About That "Extreme, Excessive and Grossly Disproportionate" Stone Sentencing Recommendation

I'm glad I didn't bother writing about the Roger Stone sentencing recommendation--between 87 and 108 months in prison--and contented myself with linking a tweet that called the Team Mueller prosecutors "animals." This morning Fox News is reporting: DOJ expected to scale back Roger Stone's 'extreme' sentencing recommendation:

The Justice Department is preparing to change its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone after top brass were "shocked" at the stiff prison term initially being sought, according to a senior DOJ official. 

... 

“The Department was shocked to see the sentencing recommendation in the filing in the Stone case last night,” the official told Fox News. “The sentencing recommendation was not what had been briefed to the Department.”

The department is now expected to scale that back. 

“The Department finds seven to nine years extreme, excessive and grossly disproportionate to Mr. Stone’s offenses,” the source told Fox News, adding that the DOJ will clarify its position on sentencing later Tuesday.

 A "senior official" speaking for "top brass?" Hmmmm. Can you say: Bill Barr. And about that "not what had been briefed to the Department"--does that mean the prosecutors LIED to the Department? Really, what else could it mean? More clarity, please!

UPDATE: Sean Davis at The Federalist raises some disturbing questions-- Mueller Prosecutors May Have Lied To DOJ About Stone Prison Sentence Recommendation:

UPDATED: The Roger Stone Verdict

It seems almost pointless to multiply words over this when Mike Cernovich seems to understand the big picture here, and can place it in perspective:

Roger Stone was prosecuted more aggressively than Jeffrey Epstein, that tells you all you need to know about the rule of law in America.

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 15, 2019

UPDATE: Another excellent example--rule of law? Not so much:

Yovanovitch, an ostensibly serious person, as well as an ambassador, will face zero consequences for blatantly lying about Burisma and Biden.

Meanwhile, Roger Stone, a joker with no formal role or responsibilities, is going to jail because he fantasized about imaginary sources. https://t.co/7xdoMVjtde

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) November 15, 2019

If James Clapper is a free man, then Roger Stone should not be in jail

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) November 15, 2019

UPDATED: John Solomon Blockbuster: Ukraine Ledger As Bad As Steele Dossier?

This morning I was bemoaning the fact that we've had little true news for some weeks, now. The heady days of document and testimony revelations appeared to be over. However, this afternoon John Solomon has come out with another blockbuster report. Right up front I want to make two quick points:

1. Solomon's report reflects and supports Rudy Giuliani's advice back in mid April of this year--going forward, we need to Pay Attention To Ukraine.

2. At the same time Solomon's report explains why patience is required, as I explained in Barr And Durham Are Focused On The CIA. The need to secure cooperation from foreign governments and their intelligence services means that Barr and Durham will need the active assistance of other persons and agencies within the US government, beginning with the POTUS himself. And their efforts will be resisted by the FBI and the CIA--the two agencies with the most to lose by the truth coming out.

That said, the opening paragraphs of Solomon's article, FBI, warned early and often that Manafort file might be fake, used it anyway, contains some of the most trenchant reporting I've seen in many months. Bear in mind, the "black cash ledger" is supposed to have been a record of payments to Paul Manafort:

When the final chapter of the Russia collusion caper is written, it is likely two seminal documents the FBI used to justify investigating Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign will turn out to be bunk. 

And the behavior of FBI agents and federal prosecutors who promoted that faulty evidence may disturb us more than we now know.

Briefly Noted: The Stone, The Hopester, The Barr

Here we are, we got what we wanted--Barr and Durham are conducting a real investigation the way it's supposed to be done--and the result is pretty much no leaking, no revelations. Tough on us.

In the meantime ...

The Roger Stone Case

Roger Stone is doing a good job demonstrating that the entire Russia Hoax narrative--importantly including the Russia-hacked-the-DNC part of it--is ... a hoax. This is an important, and public, supplement to the Barr/Durham investigation of the ICA.

Stone's argument in pre-trial motions is simply this: The Team Mueller search warrant affidavits against Stone simply assumed that Russians hacked the DNC--that's part of their probable cause narrative. Problem: Probable cause is normally based on independently verifiable information or testimony. In this case the FBI, which is behind the search warrant, did essentially NO investigation to justify the Russia-hacked-the-DNC narrative. They did not examine the DNC server, having been refused access to the physical evidence by the lawyers for the purported victim, the DNC. What they did was to rely on a redacted report by a private company, Crowdstrike, hired by the DNC--which very arguably has an interest in smearing Stone and Trump. Further, Crowdstrike appears not to have followed standard protocols for handling the physical evidence, protocols that the FBI would have been held to had they obtained the physical evidence. And now, having relied on that narrative for purposes of the search warrant Team Mueller wants to say that they can't be held to prove the underlying narrative. Stone says the evidence should all be thrown out and, IMO, that's reasonable. However, all bets are off with Judge Amy Berman Jackson. My understanding, subject to correction, is that if Jackson rules against Stone an interlocutory appeal should be allowed. We shall see.

Hope Hicks v. Dem Impeachment Theater

Briefly Noted: News Roundup

It's a bit of a slow newsday. Here are a few items worth noting, however.

Let's start with a couple of tweets from Paul Sperry that tend  to confirm earlier word:

Paul Sperry‏

@paulsperry_

BREAKING: House GOP leadership has soured on Comey replacement Wray. They r now convinced Wray's not part of the FBI cleanup & not cooperating w AG Barr & is in fact part of the cover-up of #SpyGate scandal after burying documents & refusing to make people available for interview

7:41 PM - 14 Jun 2019

It has been previously reported that IG Horowitz's wrapup is being delayed by Wray's stonewalling on document release. Difficult to say definitively at this distance, but I've made by view of Wray pretty clear. I'd like to see Barr muscle him. Publicly. Obviously there's politics involved here, but the situation seems unsatisfactory--the legacy Mueller FBI that Wray is running must be stopped in its tracks.

Paul Sperry
‏
@paulsperry_

BREAKING: House Republicans r upset w what they call Sen Graham's showboating since taking over Senate Judiciary from Grassley, who they say was "serious" bout getting to bottom of #SpyGate. But Graham's just putting on "charade" on Fox for S.C. voters & "not doing a f*cking thing"

7:30 PM - 14 Jun 2019

We've seen these rumors before, too. Graham is talking a good game, but what action is he taking? I'm willing to assume that Graham doesn't want to step on Barr/Durham toes and that there's a need for a higher profile pol to do some "showboating" on TV. Could that be the coordination with Barr? Who are the "House GOPers?" We're not told. It's another situation worth watching.

OTOH, significant evidence that Barr hasn't lapsed into somnolence--even as he's threatened with contempt in one area Barr takes "aggressive" action in another. He's clearly not shying away from confrontation:

Roger Stone Questions DOJ on Predicate of Russia DNC Hack

That's the exact title of CTH's post: Roger Stone Questions DOJ on Predicate of Russia DNC Hack. This is, IMO, an important development. There are many--including acknowledged experts in the field such as William Binney--who have challenged the entire "Russian hacking" narrative. That narrative--bolstered by the tendentious and misleading (at best) IC "assessment" and by repeated hacking hoaxes falsely attributed to Russia--is finally being challenged in court. Here's the Wikipedia summary of Binney's position:

Binney claims the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election is false, and that the Democratic National Committee e-mails were leaked by an insider instead.[23][24][25] He has appeared on Fox News at least ten times between September 2016 and November 2017 to promote this theory.[18][23][24] Binney said that the "intelligence community wasn't being honest here".[23] He has also been frequently cited on Breitbart News.[18] In November 2017 it was reported that a month earlier, Binney had met with CIA Director Mike Pompeo at the behest of President Trump.[23]

Stone's motion to suppress contains two attachments that provide technical support for his position. The first is a Declaration by Binney that provides his background and expertise hand his opinions and conclusions regarding the purported hack of the DNC server. The second attachment is the statement of another acknowledged expert who presents his analysis and conclusions, which agree with those of Binney.

Sundance makes important points about this:

Michael Caputo - Undercover Huber Comments

Byron York did an hour long interview with Michael Caputo a couple of days ago: Hey, Was That Russian With The FBI?  Caputo, of course, is another Trump campaign alumnus (and associate of Roger Stone) who was bankrupted by Mueller in an atrocious attempt to set him up. (Psst! Don't tell Jack Goldsmith that Mueller isn't the most upright of guys!) Caputo goes through his whole story with Byron. If you don't know the story, it's worth your listen.

Caputo, famously, after being grilled by the Senate Intelligence Committee, closed it with this pithy statement:

“What America needs is an investigation into the investigators. Forget about all the death threats against my family. I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election. I want to know because God Damn you to Hell.”

Undercover Huber has weighed in with some pithy tweets. Here are some selected quotes:

Caputo also reveals a few other interesting details:

...

—That his Mueller interview was with two FBI agents and Mueller Prosecutor Zelinsky. The FBI agents only wrote their 302s and never said anything

9:41 AM - 5 May 2019

I like that one, because it illustrates what I keep saying about how investigators (FBI) now being joined at the hip with the prosecutors (DoJ), and how unhealthy that whole dynamic is. Does that sound dishonest to you--FBI agents claiming to have conducted an interview, when they were only note takers, at best? Because, for all we know, Zelinsky may have also been the one who actually wrote the 302. Yeah, that sounds dishonest to me.

Believe me--it didn't use to be like that. I never did investigative interviews with an AUSA. Never. Can you see how wrong it is to have a prosecutor interviewing a subject before indictment? The prosecutor is supposed to be judging the sufficiency of the evidence that's been gathered--not creating it. And this is one of the reasons why I think it's such a bad idea to have had a string of former (and ethically challenged) prosecutors as Directors of the FBI. People keep talking about reforming the system, reforming FISA, etc. How's this for starters: Don't put Deep State operatives like Mueller and Comey in charge of the FBI!

Who We Are As Americans?

Who are we, as Americans? Liberals regularly parrot that arrogant mantra popularized by Obama: "That's not who we are as Americans," or other words to that effect.

Mark Penn has a disturbing answer to that question, Who we are as Americans, or Who we are becoming, in his latest must-read article: Defending the First Amendment, even for Roger Stone. We've written about Judge Amy Berman Jackson's actions before,

Woops!

The Myth Of Equal Protection

The Meaning Of The Roger Stone Indictment

Saul Alinsky, The Arrest Of Roger Stone, And The Uses Of Power

her blatant favoring of Team Mueller against American citizens--actions that should shame us all, as Americans. Authorizing secret police style raids on non-violent defendants, holding such defendants indefinitely in solitary confinement to force their cooperation, gagging defendants while the government leaks at will.

Read the whole thing--it's excellent. Here are a few choice excerpts:


Roger Stone can no longer criticize Judge Amy Berman Jackson, but I sure can. She should be removed from the Stone case without delay for her threats to jail him over mere speech and the extreme prejudice she has expressed against the defendant.

Of course Roger Stone makes ridiculous and often inane pronouncements. He’s Roger Stone. But that’s what the First Amendment is for — holding public officials (or anyone else, for that matter) accountable for their actions and calling them out boldly.

[Stone's public statements that] ... special counsel Robert Mueller has used a technicality to avoid random judge selection and get the same Obama appointee that denied bail to Paul Manafort in a highly unusual move, was core-protected political speech. It’s criticism of the powerful by the powerless.

Judge Jackson’s argument that Stone could prejudice the jury pool, given what’s gone on in this case, is absurd. It’s a lame excuse to insulate the judge from legitimate criticism. The special counsel arrested Roger Stone with guns drawn, amphibious units and bullet-proof vests, as though they were attacking a terrorist compound, not a Florida retirement home with a dog and a deaf wife. And the cameras from CNN were there, in advance, to capture the whole event. It was broadcast around the world. Now, that’s what I would call prejudicial.

UPDATED: Woops!

UPDATE: I'm updating to add something I should have said originally. Assuming that Bill Barr is confirmed as AG, as expected, both he and Michael Horowitz at OIG may take a more than casual interest in this matter. It is a question of respecting a core institution of our criminal justice system, the Grand Jury.

MORE: Late yesterday there was word that the DoJ is actively investigating the leak of Michael Cohen's bank records. Those bank records were obtained via a Grand Jury subpoena, so that means the investigation involves a violation of Rule 6(e)(2)(B) -- see below. This pattern of occurrences could be seen as the Special Counsel's modus operandi--leaks of Grand Jury testimony and material.

END UPDATE

Roger Stone's attorneys have filed a motion requesting a "Show Cause Order". What this means is that Stone's attorneys believe that, in the facts that they allege in the motion, they establish a prima facie case that Grand Jury secrecy rules codified in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure have been violated by the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC). Specifically, this refers to the fact that CNN had a "draft" copy of the Stone indictment at the time of Stone's arrest--two and a half hours before the indictment was unsealed by the Court. Not only that, but CNN is stated to have told Stone's attorneys that they received the "draft" from the OSC. The problem with that is that the indictment had been sealed by the Court at the OSC's request, but the "draft" copy was in fact identical to the supposedly sealed indictment--the copy in CNN's possession could only have come from the Government, as per CNN's statement, and is identical to the indictment that the Court ordered sealed.

So, Stone's attorneys are asking that the OSC be required to show cause why they didn't commit contempt of the court order that sealed the indictment. In other words, the OSC should be required to rebut the prima facie case that Stone's attorneys claim they have established. That would involve presenting some reason to believe that the disclosure was made by some person outside the OSC.

The person most affected by this motion is the "AAW" who drafted the indictment: Andrew Weissmann, senior deputy to special counsel Robert S. Mueller. Will this be a case of live by the leak, die by the leak?

The Myth Of Equal Protection

Citizens of these United States are supposed to receive Equal Protection under our laws. Somehow that doesn't always seem to work out, now that we have a Deep State--and if you don't believe there is such a thing, noted legal scholar Jack Goldsmith is here to educate you about the reality of the system we live in. In these United States in the twenty first century, equal protection of the law is--a legal fiction.

Is it equal protection when the prosecutor gets to pick the judge? I don't think so, but that's what has happened in the Roger Stone case. Using the claim that Stone's case is somehow "related" to the Paul Manafort, Team Mueller has bypassed the usual random selection of judges afforded to most defendants and had the Stone case assigned to Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is currently holding Manafort in solitary confinement.

Robert Barnes‏

@Barnes_Law 

How did the SAME federal judge in a district of 21 judges manage to get "randomly assigned" the email case, the Manafort case and the #RogerStone case? By the flagrant misuse of "related case" listing from team #Mueller to make sure their deferential Obama-appointed judge oversaw 

8:16 AM - 1 Feb 2019

The alleged crimes are different and the defendants are different and the evidence is totally different and unrelated, so how are the two cases related? Well, the prosecutor is the same--but that's not what the "related case" rule is about. It seems Team Mueller was pleased with Berman Jackson's handling of Manafort. And now she seems poised to treat Stone in similar fashion:

Brad Heath

@bradheath
A federal judge warned Roger Stone today not to treat the criminal case against him as "a book tour," and said she's considering imposing a gag order to quiet him.

12:08 PM - 1 Feb 2019

Think about that. Stone was arrested in a completely unnecessary and highly public predawn raid by 29 heavily armed FBI agents before CNN cameras, in what  was clearly an abusive and prejudicial operation intended to poison the jury pool. That had nothing to do with Stone--it was strictly the choice of Team Mueller and the FBI. And now the judge is telling Stone that he may no longer be allowed the exercise of his First Amendment rights? According to USAToday, Berman Jackson

said she was concerned that the continued publicity surrounding the case against the 66-year-old political operative could “taint” the jury pool. She gave Stone's lawyers and federal prosecutors until next Friday to tell her whether she should issue an order preventing them all from talking publicly about the case. 

UPDATED: Saul Alinsky, The Arrest Of Roger Stone, And The Uses Of Power

Reader Jim W. has drawn my attention to a NYT article about the "perp walk":

Parading the accused and the condemned before the citizenry is an age-old tactic used by those holding power. The most famous example goes back some 2,000 years, when a Jewish preacher from Nazareth was forced to trudge painfully to Calvary. William Wallace, the Scottish independence leader, experienced it being dragged through London before his execution in 1305. French monarchists, during the revolution, endured it as well in the tumbrels carrying them to the guillotine.

That sort of public shaming has not disappeared, even if conducted in 21st-century America with less brutality. The modern version is known as a perp walk. As in days of old, a criminal suspect is displayed in front of a fevered crowd — composed now not of the howling masses but of camera and microphone holders pushing and shouting in sweaty pursuit of the best possible lens angle.

The article notes that in 1999 a federal judge in NY ruled that the perp walk was unconstitutional unless it had some "legitimate law enforcement objective or justification":

Judge Schwartz said the walk was intended to humiliate ... and had ''no legitimate law enforcement objective or justification.'' ...

The perp walk, though, seems almost certain to survive Judge Schwartz. 

The author was right, of course. Intimidation and humiliation by the Leftist establishment will always be with us. In place of the "perp walk", behold: the SWAT raid in the hours of darkness!