Roger Stone Commutation

Sen. Leahy: “Do you believe a president could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise not to incriminate him?”

AG Barr: “No. That would be a crime.”

#PardonMeTrump@ProjectLincoln pic.twitter.com/mH9S3lekOT

— Aryi (@aryi3025) July 12, 2020

AG Barr -- though maybe under oath he would weasel about how it isn't a "pardon" -- let it be known that he was opposed to the commutation of Roger Stone.  (Of course, he would not grant the premise applied here!)  Note that a full pardon would likely leave him open to actual testimony, given the Fifth Amendment immunity would be gone.  OTOH, the top Republicans (the coat-less one and the Drama Queen from SC) supported it after it was dropped as the latest bit of Friday news dump fuckery.  The corruptness of it all is apparent:

Roger Stone isn’t just Trump’s confidante or friend. According to newly unsealed material in the Mueller report, he’s also a person who had the power to reveal to investigators that Trump likely lied to Mueller—and to whom Trump publicly dangled rewards if Stone refused to provide Mueller with that information. Now, it seems, the president is making good on that promise.

Then, there is the basic wrongs involved:

First, there is the nature of the offenses that Stone committed. He lied to Congress repeatedly to obstruct the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. But his lies were not only numerous, they were obvious. He claimed to have no written communications about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, yet he had many such communications. He claimed to have no written communications with his intermediary to WikiLeaks, yet there were hundreds of such records. He said he never discussed his conversations with the intermediary with anyone in the Trump campaign, yet he did so on a number of occasions. To tell such blatant lies, and expose oneself to prosecution, raises a question as to whether he was doing so with the belief that he would not be punished for these actions and, if so, why he thought that was the case.

Then, there is the statement put out ("Russian hoax" etc.) on the official White House page, which still makes me want to throw up in my mouth a bit more than his usual avenues of b.s.  This lead even the "I'll let my report speak for itself" Mueller to feel compelled to speak via op-ed:

We now have a detailed picture of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The special counsel’s office identified two principal operations directed at our election: hacking and dumping Clinton campaign emails, and an online social media campaign to disparage the Democratic candidate. We also identified numerous links between the Russian government and Trump campaign personnel — Stone among them. We did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities. [This doesn't mean it didn't happen. Obstruction, up to Trump, inhibited full investigation here.] The investigation did, however, establish that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome. It also established that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.

Or, simply put, he's still a convicted felon and rightly so.  There are blatant moves that happen from time to time that underline in thick sharpie ink (that's an allusion) how bad this guy is.  It's just a bit more blatant than usual.  One check would be congressional investigation and ultimately impeachment.  The "reasonable one" put made up limits on Congress there last week.  The blocked Obama nominee (a key move ultimately regarding the leaning of the circuit) has it right on that point. 

The Mueller Report, following a limited mandate made more so by a conservative (in a principled sense) leader, was a powerful document with more left on the table that we do not know.  It has somewhat gone into the memory hole after an allegedly (says some) bad appearance by Robert Mueller (who surely didn't want to be there, in role he is not really fit for) in front of Congress.  It was barely touched upon during the impeachment proceedings though the whole thing had a "here we go again" quality that made it very relevant.  Perhaps, we need constant reminding.

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A couple other things.  First, here is a Native American take on the big Supreme Court case on that front at the end of term.  Still not sure if the decision was correct -- the Native Americans very well could be both screwed and the "right" decision going the other way -- but important to have that.  And, relatedly, the person there on Twitter supported the (finally!) move to change (new name pending) the "Washington Redskins" name but also says other such names like the Indians, Braves and Blackhawks should be next. 

And, the new and "improved" blogger editing feature is aggravating. The pull down list is hard to use, the quote (blockquote) function never works and overall I find it hard to create my usual content.  I tried like three times to embed the tweet and put the blockquote found at the top here and it just didn't work. The old blogger is so much easier.  The only thing that is really better is that you can publish without moving out of the editing box so it can be easier to correct mistakes later on.