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Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Looking At The Roger Stone Sentence

There seems to be a faulty circuit in the machine that generates perpetual outrage among the mainstream media and Democrats because of whatever the President does.  The latest big push by the Dems for -- you guessed it -- new investigations of Trump arise in connection with the sentencing of Roger Stone.  Stone is a friend of the President.  Stone was convicted of lying to a federal agent in a trial last year.  It was one of those process charges that arose out of the Mueller investigation.

Here are the pertinent details.

1.  After the trial, it was up to the judge to sentence Stone for these crimes. 

2.  Under the federal sentencing guidelines, the sentence for Stone is supposed to be lightened due to his advance age, his lack of any prior criminal convictions, and his health.

3.  Both the prosecution and the defense get to put in sentencing recommendations before the judge makes her decision. 

4.  The four attorneys who prosecuted Stone are actually from the Mueller team.  The prosecution, however, is under the direction of the Justice Department.

5.  The four Mueller attorneys put in a recommendation that Stone get sentenced to 9 years in prison.

6,  By way of contrast, Georges Papadopoulos who pled guilty to lying to an FBI agent was sentenced to two weeks in prison.  General Flynn who also pled guilty to lying to an FBI agent  has not yet been sentenced, but the Justice Department original recommendation was for probation only.

7.  The sentence recommended for Stone is outrageously long.  It is out of line with normal conduct by the Justice Department.

8.  Because the sentence recommended by the Mueller attorneys was way too long and because it had not been approved by the DOJ, the department withdrew that recommendation.  This was done by Attorney General Barr and DOJ without any conversation with the President or any request by the President for that action.

9.  In place of the original bizarre request from the Mueller team, the new DOJ request asks the Judge to make the decision while considering the nature of the crime, Stone's lack of a prior record, his age and his health.  That's exactly what the law requires the judge to do.

10.  The four Mueller attorneys resigned because their overly harsh sentencing request was withdrawn.

11.  The media and the Dems are still going crazy over this "outrage" of Barr asking the judge to follow the law.  After all, that's what Barr did; he asked the judge to follow the law, nothing more and nothing less.  And lest you think that I'm overstating the reaction from the media and the Dems, you should know that Schumer wants investigations, but many other Dems and media types have called for Barr to be -- yes, you guessed it -- impeached.

I don't think the media or the Dems will ever give up unless someone seeks an order of commitment for many of them.

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