Commuting on a Friday night, Tweet about it all Saturday morning…or something.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that Roger Stone was entangled in “an illegal Witch Hunt,” offering his first comment since the White House announced Friday night that Trump commuted the prison sentence of his former campaign aide, sparing his longtime adviser from having to report to prison next week.
“Roger Stone was targeted by an illegal Witch Hunt that never should have taken place. It is the other side that are criminals, including Biden and Obama, who spied on my campaign – AND GOT CAUGHT!,” Trump tweeted Saturday morning.
Trump continued to tweet about other players involved in the Russia investigation, including his former attorney general Jeff Sessions and the former British spy Christopher Steele.
“This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail,” Trump wrote of Steele. “A sick lier who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC!”
Trump shared multiple articles about Steele, who was ordered by a British court earlier this week to pay damages over “inaccurate” claims in the dossier that he became known for during the 2016 campaign.
At least re the tweet, critical steps of “charge” and “convict” seem to have been left out :^)Report
If there is even one shred of a silver lining to all this, it is that Trump has exposed the Republican Party as complete and total frauds on every single thing they ever claimed to believe in.
Patriotism, morality, respect for law, fiscal prudence…any Republican who ever utters any word about these things should be laughed out of the room forever.Report
Saw a state that Trump has made a record-low number of pardons/commutations, only 36 so far — a tenth of the usual number. Of those, 31 have been for people with a connection to him.Report
That’s because five out of six people convicted of federal crimes are personal friends of the president.Report
The numbers are probably right but when I do a deep dive on Obama when he was at the same point, Obama pardoned a ton of people MANY years after they were out of prison for the first several years of his Presidency.
When I look at Bush, same thing. His first one is pretty typical, in 2002 he pardon’ed a guy who was sentenced in 1962 for Manufacturing untaxed whiskey. There’s another on the same day for a 1993 alteration of an odometer, and for draft dodging in 1957.
The BULK of these are cleaning of records long after the fact.Report
It’s worth remembering that commuting a sentence doesn’t vacate the conviction. For now Roger Stone remains a federally convicted felon. He just doesn’t have to serve jail time.Report
And since this was a commutation rather than a pardon, Stone can take the Fifth in future legal proceedings in which he might have relevant information.Report
I think that’s what Trump hopes – though it’s unlikely that he’d roll on Trump anyway.Report