President Donald Trump’s consistent attempts to bend the legal system to his benefit as president exploded into the spotlight yet again recently, when the Justice Department intervened to lower the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office original sentencing recommendation for longtime Trump pal Roger Stone. He’d been recommended seven to nine years in prison for an obstruction of justice scheme, and the announcement that the recommendation would be lowered came shortly after the president had a public Twitter meltdown about the original recommendation. Now, federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who’s handling Stone’s case, has denied his defense team’s desperate attempt to just postpone the sentencing altogether.
The sentencing was originally scheduled for Thursday, and for now, it’s slated to continue at that time, when whatever Jackson’s take is on the shifting sentencing recommendations will become public.
During a telephone conference on Tuesday with representatives of both sides, including Stone’s team and the government, she explained:
‘I think that delaying this sentence would not be a prudent thing to do under all of the circumstances.’
Stone’s team, besides their request for his sentencing to be delayed, has also sought to have Stone granted an entirely new trial. They wanted the sentencing delay while that gambit was considered. Although their original motion for that new trial was sealed, some criticism has circulated of jury foreperson Tomeka Hart, who Stone’s supporters have alleged had disqualifying previous bias against the president before taking on the case. For now, Jackson says she has not decided what to do with the motion for a new trial, but she did add that the sentence that she hands down on Thursday would be delayed from going into effect until the motion’s fate was actually decided.
The original prosecutors on Stone’s case all withdrew after politically minded higher-ups at the Justice Department intervened to lower the Trump ally’s sentencing recommendation. Their follow-ups at least carried the case along to the level of arguing for Stone’s sentencing to proceed as planned.
Meanwhile, Trump has continued his days-long tirade of anger against the original team. On Tuesday, he seemed to offer public support for the notion that Stone should, at the very least, get an entirely new trial. In other words — he’s trying to meddle in the judicial process yet again for the innumerable time in a row.
He tweeted:
‘These were Mueller prosecutors, and the whole Mueller investigation was illegally set up… Everything having to do with this fraudulent investigation is badly tainted and, in my opinion, should be thrown out… If I wasn’t President, I’d be suing everyone all over the place. BUT MAYBE I STILL WILL. WITCH HUNT!’
These were Mueller prosecutors, and the whole Mueller investigation was illegally set up based on a phony and now fully discredited Fake Dossier, lying and forging documents to the FISA Court, and many other things. Everything having to do with this fraudulent investigation is…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2020
….BUT MAYBE I STILL WILL. WITCH HUNT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2020
What a normal, not completely unhinged thing for a president of the United States to say! Not. To be clear, there’s not a shred of apparent evidence that the Mueller probe was “illegally set up,” although yes, Stone’s case stems from that investigation. Trump is losing his cool over and over again, and officials at the Justice Department really want observers to take their dramatic pledges of independence from the president seriously?
