Roger Stone pardon: Why Trump is a crook
By: Visual Disobedience
Tags: Trump Administration, Roger Stone, Corruption, Dumptrump, Politcs

Since taking office, Trump has issued 25 pardons and 11 commutations, most of which have raised controversy of corruption. You can read the details of Trump’s pardons and commutations here. Trump’s latest commutation of his close friend Roger J. Stone Jr. has raised concern, demonstrating how immoral he is as a leader.

The background: “Since the 1980s, Stone worked with Republican politics for half a century. Stone made it something of a mission to make Donald Trump president. Stone was a member of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.In January 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted Stone with one count of obstruction, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering. Stone denied the charges and pleaded not guilty. In November 2019, Stone was convicted by a jury on all seven charges that he faced, concerning his actions during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The sentencing judge prosecuted Stone for covering up for the President”.

The commutation is not the first time Trump has granted clemency for those involved in helping commit his crimes. Along with Stone, his other allies such as “his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort received clemency. Critics interpreted that they were witnesses of tampering, in effect promising intervention to allies if they refused to cooperate with investigators against him.”

Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale Law School professor and lawyer in President Obama’s administration, commented that “The president’s pardon power does not extend to nullifying the rule of law for his cronies to shield from public scrutiny his obstruction of justice.” Jack L. Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, said, “Mr. Stone’s commutation pointed to the larger pattern under Mr. Trump. In 31 of his 36 pardons or commutations, he noted, Mr. Trump advanced his political goals or benefited someone with a personal connection, whose case had been brought to his attention by television or was someone he admired for their celebrity.” Goldsmith stated that although this is common among past leaders, there has “been nothing like Trump from a systematic perspective.”

Even some Republicans are condemning this commutation. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah wrote on Twitter that “it was an abuse of power intended to subvert justice. Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very President.”

The New York Times compared Trump’s commutation of Stone to former President Nixon and the Watergate scandal, when “Nixon secretly promised to pardon three lieutenants, H. R. Haldeman, John. D Ehrlichman, and John N. Mitchell, the day after Senate hearings opened in 1973.” The thing about Nixon’s situation is that “he never followed through. Mr. Haldeman, Mr. Ehrlichman, and Mr. Mitchell all were indicted in 1974 and accused of making ‘offers of leniency, executive clemency, and other benefits’ to obstruct justice. All three went to prison. Mr. Nixon then resigned that August.”

Jill Wine-banks, one of the prosecutors during the Watergate scandal, said that “I think Nixon understood the power of the public and did his crimes in private, not in public, to avoid political consequences. He was right then. Look what happened to President Ford. Yet, Trump sees no consequences.”

This latest scandal involving Stone is one of many of his egregious acts. It is time to defeat Trump in this upcoming election! We can reverse his 2016 electoral college victory. Do you vote in one of the five crucial electoral college swing states — Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina or Wisconsin? We need your vote against Trump in this upcoming election to beat him. Let’s flip 38 electoral votes!

Yours Truly,

Jackie T.

Visual Disobedience Campaign consultant

Facts from this post primarily from this article in The New York Times, this article from Business Insider, and this article on Wikpedia.com.

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