Roger Stone is a free man and the reasons he walks free are in plain sight. David Frum writes:
Roger Stone’s best trick was always his upper-class-twit wardrobe. He seemed such a farcical character, such a Klaxon-alarm-from-a-mile-away goofball—who could take him seriously?
He clowned, he cavorted, he demanded limelight—which made it in some ways impossible to imagine that he could have done anything seriously amiss. Bank robbers don’t go on Twitter to announce, “Hey, I’m going to rob a bank, sorry, not sorry.” Or so you’d expect.
Stone was simultaneously in communication with the Trump campaign and the candidate Donald Trump. The former Trump deputy campaign chair Rick Gates testified at Stone’s trial in November 2019 that he witnessed Trump take a call from Stone after the first WikiLeaks release in July. Less than a minute after the call ended, Trump told Gates that another release would follow later in the campaign.
Trump declared in writing to the Mueller investigation that he did not recall discussing WikiLeaks with Stone. On page 77 of Volume II of the report, Mueller expressed disbelief in Trump’s sworn evidence: “Witnesses said that Trump was aware that Roger Stone was pursuing information about hacked documents from WikiLeaks at a time when public reports stated that Russian intelligence officials were behind the hacks, and that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks releases.” On page 17 of Volume II, the report cites the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen as one of those witnesses, along with Gates.
It's all there in plain sight. Stone was convicted on all counts. Yet he has avoided prison because he made it clear that, if he was sent there, he would sing:
Stone told the journalist Howard Fineman why he lied and whom he was protecting. “He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.” You read that, and you blink. As the prominent Trump critic George Conway tweeted: “I mean, even Tony Soprano would have used only a pay phone or burner phone to say something like this.” Stone said it on the record to one of the best-known reporters in Washington. In so many words, he seemed to imply: I could have hurt the president if I’d rolled over on him. I kept my mouth shut. He owes me.
The Mob controls the United States.
Image: Vanity Fair
8 comments:
Stone's commutation is entirely expected and predictable coming from the ever so desperate Trump. One thing for certain is that this will most certainly NOT be the bottom of the barrel, that notion has long since past. A knee capped Congress and totally captured Senate will now sit by as aid disappears, no benefits, rent due and absolutely no money for food or health care, as millions end up out on the streets, possibly as soon as Labour Day. Then what? If they vote this fraudulent disgusting waste of skin back in, they're even more FUBAR than they already are. We will also go down the sewer and all the hard work for naught when the pressure mounts to reopen the borders, which our country will be powerless to stop. By the way, I saw a California License plate proudly on display in West Kelowna Saturday, I guess they go through by mistake. BC Waterboy
Viruses know no borders, waterboy. And the Trump virus is even more deadly than COVID.
From what I have read of the Stone case, he is an idiot at best but clearly one with some nasty knowledge. One has to admire Donald Trump's ability to pick such an outstandingly crooked and incompetent set of staff and advisors. Still, to a good extent, Donald has kept his promise to drain the swamp. Most people did not realize he meant a Stalinistic purge of his own associates.
I would not say that the Mob controls the USA so much as Trump was raised to admire the New York mob bosses and in his shambling way is trying to imitate them. It reminds me of a not too intelligent person I worked with many years ago for whom a Hell's Angel biker was the epitome of "cool".
Come to think of it, the Mob, probably, would be badly insulted if accused of running the USA at the moment.
You're probably right, jrk. Traditionally, the Mob has seen government as the enemy.
@ Owen
Actually I meant that the Mob would be insulted that anyone thought them that incompetent.
I take your point, jrk. When it comes to getting the job done, Trump is no Don Corleone.
It's plain now why Trump was so exorcised with Jeff Sessions. Trump needed a new, more complaint and easily corrupted attorney general before the release of the Mueller report. In William Barr, Trump had a guy who would not let his oath of office impede the transformation of the Department of Justice into a house organ of the presidency. That is an act of defilement that borders on treason. At every turn, a.g. Barr has chosen whatever path serves Donald Trump. Trump may be addled but Barr isn't. He knows what he has done and he has done it freely. He is a criminal.
The Flynn travesty is a blatant exercise in corruption. Fortunately the trial judge has refused to accept the intervention of a dodgy 3-judge appeal ruling that he expunge Flynn's convictions, his guilty pleas, and allow the charges to be withdrawn. He has, instead, summoned the entire appellate bench to hear the motion, trusting that the rest won't be as beholden and corrupt as the two that ruled in Flynn's favour.
The rule of law depends on the public's confidence in the administration of the law. It is embodied in maxims such as 'the law must not merely be done, it must be seen to be done.' Bill Barr has turned his back on the rule of law. He is pure evil.
It appears that Barr is following in his father's footsteps, Mound. The old man hired Jeffrey Epstein to teach at his upsale private school, even though Epstein did not possess a degree. As was the case with Trump, the sins of the fathers have been passed on to the next generation.
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