With this proviso of course – that no one can predict what Donald Trump will do – even five minutes in advance – sources connected to Trump said that the president is seriously considering whether or not to pardon Roger Stone.
A lot of discussion and a great deal of support for Stone’s pardon is coming now from many people close to Trump. Many supporters are arguing that the president should pardon Stone now before he has to report to prison.
“It will energize his base,” one source said.
As far as is known, Trump has not spoken directly to Stone since his indictment.
On Thursday morning, Trump hinted that Stone’s pardon might be coming very soon.
He shared a tweet from Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk that said, “Roger Stone will serve more time in prison than 99% of these rioters destroying America. All because he supports Donald Trump. This isn’t justice.”
Kirk asked his followers to retweet the post if they want to see “a full pardon of Roger Stone.”
Trump himself retweeted the post and then added a clear hint that Stone may not be spending any time in prison.
Trump tweeted, “Roger was a victim of a corrupt and illegal Witch Hunt, one which will go down as the greatest political crime in history. He can sleep well at night!”
It is obvious that no one can sleep well at night who is scheduled to report to prison in a few weeks amid the coronavirus and riot lockdowns of all federal prisons.
The witch hunt referred to by Trump is, of course, the result of the Russian hoax investigation conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison after being found guilty by a highly partisan jury, presided over by a highly partisan judge, of obstructing a congressional investigation, witness intimidation, and lying to the House Intelligence Committee while it was investigating Trump’s campaign and possible collusion with Russia.
The collusion with Russia – the purported purpose of the investigation – was never proven.
The witness intimidation against Stone was a nonsensical charge.
I personally spoke with the witness, Randy Credico, and he told me that he was never intimidated by Stone. He even wrote to the judge, Amy Berman Jackson, to state this same fact.
Credico and Stone are old friends and his banter with Credico – unfortunately done by text – was paraded by the prosecution team as intimidation, especially remarks that Stone, jokingly, said he would get him and his dog, and that he should do his Frank Pentanjeli act, referring to the character from the Godfather who, when testifying before a Senate committee, suddenly changes his testimony.
Of course, the jokes were in bad taste, but they were only jokes. What did not come out – and some say Roger’s attorney failed to cross-examine Credico properly – is that Credico, who is a comedian, used to do an imitation of Frank Pentanjeli, substituting the names from the Godfather for whatever politician he was roasting.
Stone is set to begin his prison sentence no later than June 30.
While it is not clear whether Trump will issue his pardon before that date, there is believed to be no consensus on his team on whether he should do it now, or after the election.
Stone helped introduce Trump to politics and reportedly was first to recommend that he run for president. Reportedly Stone was one of the first people to discuss the idea of building a wall along the Mexican border as part of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Stone had an easy opportunity to avoid prosecution – and it was offered by the corrupt Mueller prosecution team – which was to turn on Trump – give them something to hang the president, but Stone refused to lie for the ever-eager perjury-suborning prosecution.
In another tweet on Thursday morning, Trump said of the man who spent millions investigating him and did not prove one instance of collusion with the Russians, “Mueller should have never been appointed, although he did prove that I must be the most honest man in America!”
It is important to note that Stone was not convicted of colluding with the Russians. No evidence was presented that he ever helped the Russians with anything.
The nonsensical torturing of what he said about Julian Assange releasing info [emails, etc.] on a corrupt Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta – which turned out to be true – was paraded as Stone being in collusion with Assange, who was in collusion with Russia.
None of it was proven.
It was never proven that Stone met or even spoke with Assange. Stone’s pronouncements on what Assange, who is now a political prisoner in the UK, would do was based solely on Assange’s public statements and consultation with the witness he supposedly intimidated, Credico, who had contacts with Assange and his team.
None of this was illegal. It has never been proven that Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a Russian asset.
A Trump source summed up the political and justice calculus.
He said “There are two arguments. The one against pardoning Stone right now is: ‘why have another uproar before the election?’
“The better argument is that the whole Mueller investigation was tainted, rife with abuse and fraud, and done by people who wanted to create something out of nothing. If you believe the whole nexus was wrong, how can you let anybody go to jail for it?
“The political calculus is this: The only way Trump wins the election is if his base is engaged and vote at 100 percent. Therefore, you have to keep doing things to keep the base activated. As for the argument that Trump is going to get beat up in the press if he pardons Stone, it is totally irrelevant. He is going to get beat up on something else anyway.
“As for the Mueller investigation, the foundations were weak and even the trial jurors, who were clearly partisan, lied and said they weren’t. The prosecutors kept from the defense and from the jury that Randy Credico was the source for Stone’s information and that Stone was not directly involved in the release of the damning-to-Hillary emails.
“Credico and others gave exonerating information to the grand jury which was withheld. Stone was overly charged because he supported the president. He could have gotten immunity in a minute if he would have lied and said he was acting on behalf of Trump. Then he could have walked away scot-free.
“If you are going to pardon him, pardon him now and you won’t lose one vote. But if he goes to prison, you strengthen your opponents’ argument that there was validity to the Mueller probe. If the Russian collusion was a hoax, a corrupt endeavor to overturn an election, then you are justified in pardoning Roger Stone now.”
There was so much wrong with the Mueller investigation – and with the kangaroo-style court that convicted Stone – that justice demands his pardon.
It’s unfortunate that you can’t see that when you’re close to someone poisonous, you may not be able to recognize the toxicity. How can you spend your time outing Keith Raniere while defending people like Roger Stone? Roger Stone is as toxic as Trump. Perhaps more toxic, since he’s spent many decades pimping out dictators and making them palatable for the unwashed masses through dirty, backroom connections. Perhaps you could use your investigative skills to figure out why you’re unwilling or unable to see this.
Good report, Frank. Always nice to see another perspective that is different than what the media says.
I liked Stone in general. I liked his style. He was someone I admired. I don’t like that he created the “build the wall” mantra. It is very divisive. It further pushes hate towards Latinos in the US. I don’t think Stone gains much from bragging that he created that mantra. If anything, I now feel resentment towards him (which I did not have before.)
My impression is that Stone was playing with fire and he should have been much more careful. But not sure if he deserves a prison sentence. I am unsure if Trump would save him. Has trump been loyal to his partners before?
In a sense, you are right that not saving Stone is saying that the media, the prosecution about the Russian intervention was right.
After Trump wins the election or loses the election…Guaranteed he pardons Stone.
Last thing I will say about Roger Stone….
Putting Roger Stone in prison at this point in time is like giving Roger the death penalty.
What kind of care would he receive he is sent to prisoner and contracts Covid-19?
Roger Stone does not deserve to have Russian Roulette played with his life.
Any fool can see that Roger Stone has impeccable hair and is unsuitable to be imprisoned. Really. He is a barely hatched Floridian as it is.
Of course, this is an apolitical observation. For once, fuck politics. See the fella himself.
So here’s an uncomplicated, gut-level response to a coiffure kind of situation. Roger Stone has commonality to the Fort Lauderdale area, where there are flocks of silver foxes.
Leave Roger Stone be. Come on. The poor guy could even be a Virgo, and that can be punitive enough, w/o prison.
This is all too picayune, and Mueller has acted like a big ugh. There’s plenty of room in Florida for Roger. Besides, the coiffure angels are always watching, day & night.
Roger Stone can’t go to prison, his wardrobe for his many tailor-made suits doesn’t fit in his prison cell. He’s also a high-risk group in Covid-19 times. Furthermore, it would harm the American economy, because otherwise, his tailor would lose a big and important customer, including the lost sales for new suits.
Some very astute observations, Shivani. Besides, Orange is really gonna clash hard with his pearlescent skin tone. Tsk. …Unpardonable.
‘Besides, the coiffure angels are always watching, day & night’
As are the archangels of magnificent ophthalmic appliances. I especially liked the tortoise-shell black lensed jobs I’ve seen in a few of his pictures. Also, do they know how to launder a Loro Piana overcoat in prison? He does seem a very Loro Piana type of guy. There ought to be concessions, if not full amnesty for that!
Have Congress and the Senate been abducted by aliens, or are they just on a very long lunch break?
Or have they gone AWOL?
Anybody checked their vitals recently?
Trump wants to “energize” his fan base — aka the KKK?
I guess now that the Corona ‘coon hunt’ is off — since a couple of MAGA maggots got caught on camera shooting Mr. Armory in the back while jogging and DIDN’T quite get away with it, after all, and since the “rioters” aren’t quite cooperating in breaking the law consistently enough to justify “Federal” paramilitary “intervention” — pardoning Roger Stone just might do the trick and boost morale among Trump’s troops.
I said, “Arbery” not “armory.”
…Look! Trump’s Attorney General, William
Barr, has race riot, ‘insurgency act’ priors. 27 years ago it was Barr who clamped the National Guard on LA during the Rodney King protests turned riots.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/bill-barr-los-angeles-riots-attorney-general/index.html
How about writing about a new staff story of President Donald Trump?
Frank Report also publishes rumors, even ones that come true.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s dismissal is imminent. He will likely remain in office until a successor is found. If Esper doesn’t want to be fired, he should expect to be released and submit his resignation.
Stone and Assange are both completely harmless characters that haven’t done anybody any harm; hence they are being targeted for political reasons.
Nobody should go to prison to satisfy political ends.
Yes, they are being used to advance TRUMP’s political agenda. First, as chum to satisfy the bloodlust, take the blame for all that went askew in the Mueller investigation, and now by Barr to rally Trump’s troops and abet the fear they too will be mocked and left UNPARDONED like Stone and Assange by their fearless, bunker bitch leader.
“LOSERS”
Mueller’s face on the front of TIME is a disgrace. He kept David Isamov out of jail in 1998 –
but wants to put Stone in jail.
Mueller ought to be there.
BTW, TIME put Hitler on its cover too.
America has become as Communist as the old Soviet Union with Show Trials against Political and Class Enemies.
I noticed that as well. The current chairman even started Communist style parades in the capital. It is a shame what we became under him. Reports say he even uses the police and the military to hunt the opposition.
It’s much better to use the IRS to hunt the political opposition, as happened during the Obama administration. So much more civilized.
Bernie Sanders lost twice!!!
Even the Dems are not that Commie.
How you ever not angry about something?
If you are such a patriot then get of your soapbox and do something.