Trump puts finger on the travesty of throwing Roger Stone in the can
Well, they did it. Another conservative head on a pike for the far-left pantheon.
A federal jury on Friday convicted longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone of tampering with a witness and lying to Congress about his efforts to learn of hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The panel of nine women and three men deliberated for less than two days before finding Stone, 67, guilty on all seven counts resulting from his September 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, which was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Kremlin's efforts to damage Donald Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
In other words, Roger Stone, the all-around political operator long considered a "boogie man" to Democrats, got his, in another string of process crimes, and now faces 50 years in prison.
President Trump has put his finger on just why this whole thing is problematic.
So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come. Well, what about Crooked Hillary, Comey, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Shifty Schiff, Ohr & Nellie, Steele & all of the others, including even Mueller himself? Didn’t they lie?....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
....A double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
Seems Stone was convicted of lying about conversations with marginal characters such as Alex Jones in the old Russia collusion hoax, which turned out to be a nothingburger. Instead of dropping the charges when the whole thing turned out to be a joke, we now learn that Stone is a big bad criminal in need of 50 years in the can, a sentence well above what most drunk drivers get — heck, well above what most murderers get. Seriously, some chats with anarchic conspiracy-monger Alex Jones, which Stone supposedly wasn't truthful about to investigators, merits 50 years in the can?
There's a problem of proportion here. If that's a 50-year crime, how many years should real liars and manipulators, such as James Comey, Andrew McCabe, or John Brennan, be looking at? They aren't even being charged despite the oodles of evidence piling up from them.
Not only was the choice to prosecute Stone way out of proportion to what went down, but it was a culmination of a lot of bad behavior. First, yes, Stone behaved badly throughout his trial, ignoring the judge's gag orders and yelling "bias" before any bias was demonstrated. But the bigger misconduct was from the prosecutors, with their dozens of armed-to-the-teeth shock troops who raided Stone's house to arrest him, along with those tipped off CNN TV cameras in the dead-of-night arrest.
Now, the punishment is out of proportion to the charges as well. Sentencing will come later, but 50 years for kibbitzing with a marginal guy like Jones is really outrageous stuff.
Trump points out that not only is it overkill, but it's also a double standard. Why isn't a guy like John Brennan, whom all roads lead to in the bid to Get Trump, in the dock facing charges for what is a very real coup d'état effort while Stone is? If one goes to the can for this stuff, all of them need to go. Why isn't James Comey, who leaked classified documents to reporters and lied to Congress as well as the president himself, in the dock, too?
One set of rules for them, one set for us.
Stone's friend Mancow, the popular and well known Chicago radio host, pointed out something even more problematic with this draconian punishment of Stone:
Roger Stone .... my friend.... Will he be “committing suicide” like Epstein soon I wonder? What a heartbreaker. Deep state. @Project_Veritas @DeepStateJ @PrisonPlanet @BreitbartNews @newsmax @larryelder @larrysoldinger @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/obW1NCCemv
— MancowMuller (@MancowMuller) November 15, 2019
Sure, it's easy to dismiss, except that in the Epstein case, it really happened. Powerful political forces on the left seem to have...seen things go their way with Epstein. And dead men tell no tales. It's not conspiracy talk if it really happened; it's a reasonable inference. In light of the Left's rabid hate of Stone, it make sense to fear for his safety.
Trump would be on solid ground shutting down the whole travesty of justice now and pardoning Stone.
Image credit: CNN screen shot via shareable YouTube.