Sometimes, karma might work after all. This Thursday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced longtime Trump pal Roger Stone to 40 months in prison, which works out to about three and a half years, which he’s set to serve because of his wide-ranging obstruction of justice scheme that he tried to use to conceal his connections to Wikileaks. As he exited the courtroom where he received the sentencing, a group of demonstrators, whose mood seemed to stand in for many, many others across the U.S., chanted:
‘Lock him up!’
Check it out:
Roger Stone is met with yells of "lock him up!" as he exits the courthouse following his sentencing pic.twitter.com/hc5vxb0qpj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 20, 2020
Stone, of course, is one of the Trump allies who’s helped lead the always outlandish “Lock her up!” chants targeting Hillary Clinton — and he’s not the first one of them to themselves face criminal charges while Clinton remains cleared of any and all allegations of wrongdoing. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn also led chants against Clinton, including at the 2016 Republican National Convention itself, and he’s also faced a federal criminal case. He got caught lying to federal investigators, and he’s still awaiting sentencing.
Trump himself has personally faced a “Lock him up!” chant at one point. When he visited a game of the recent World Series held in the D.C. area, the vast majority of the crowd seemed entirely unenthused at his presence — to put it mildly. They promptly began chanting “Lock him up!” after the crowd’s attention was turned to the fact that the president was there in the first place. Some high-horse political pundits complained about the chant, but Trump’s organized, sexist, and baseless smears against Hillary were vastly different from a spontaneous decision of a crowd of people to mockingly turn his own side’s chant against him.
From here, there’s been talk of the president pardoning Stone, which would serve as well as just about anything to cement Trump’s attempt to secure power by any means necessary. Trump has seemed to indicate that he’s been considering the idea, and prominent voices on his side, like Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, are openly advocating for the idea, although the president has yet to actually use a pardon for anyone connected to the Russia scandal.
Check out Twitter’s response:
