Stone faces sentencing amid political firestorm

[RonZeplin]

Trump already offered Assange a pardon.

Were you gone yesterday?

Fake News.

That pardon offer is as fake as the Javanka, Israel Palestine "peace deal".

 

[dannno]

Fake News.

That pardon offer is as fake as the Javanka, Israel Palestine "peace deal".

You seem to have no problem constantly throwing your credibility out into the middle of the freeway to get run over.

Trump offered Assange a full pardon, all he has to do is testify to what he has already said many times on twitter.

 

[Valli6]

Fox news just reported, 40 months.

3 years and 4 months.

...Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison and pay a $20,000 fine on Thursday for witness tampering and lying to Congress. He will be on probation upon his release.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/roger-stone-sentenced

 

[Warlord]

Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison on Thursday for lying to Congress and witness tampering amid a firestorm of controversy as the Trump administration pushed for a lighter sentence for the longtime political provocateur.

Thursday's sentencing hearing follows a tumultuous stretch that saw President Trump attack the original prosecutors, the judge and the jury in the case on behalf of his onetime adviser. And it follows the withdrawal of the original prosecution team from the case after the Justice Department amended their recommendation that Stone serve seven to nine years in prison.

During the hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson sharply questioned the new attorney for the prosecution, John Crabb Jr. of the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office, over the administration's sentencing reversal.

Crabb demurred when Jackson asked whether he actually wrote the updated sentencing memo that the government submitted under his name last week or if his superiors at the Justice Department had directed him to ask for a sentence "far less" than the original recommendation. He said that he was not authorized to discuss internal department deliberations in open court.

Still, Crabb was conciliatory in his courtroom remarks, praising the original prosecution team and insisting that the Justice Department is cmmitted to doing its job without "fear or favor." Despite amending the original sentencing recommendation, he argued that Stone still deserves a "substantial" prison sentence.

That controversy has overshadowed the case, in which prosecutors accused Stone of lying to Congress about his contacts with associates he believed to have been communicating with WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign in an effort to feed inside information to then-candidate Trump. He was also charged with pressuring a witness into not cooperating with congressional investigators.

Prosecutors alleged during trial that Stone lied in 2017 to the House Intelligence Committee, which was investigating Russian interference in the election, in an effort to protect the president, who was still in the early months of his administration.

“The evidence in this case will show that Roger Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee because the truth looked bad — the truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump,” Aaron Zelinsky, one of the prosecutors in the case, told the jury in November.

Zelinsky and the rest of the original prosecution team withdrew from the case last week after Attorney General William Barr overruled their sentencing recommendation. One of the attorneys on the team resigned from the Justice Department.

The sentence is sure to increase speculation that Trump will pardon Stone. The president said publicly this week that he hasn't given it any thought, but a round of high-profile pardons and commutations this week was seen by many as a message intended for Stone and other Trump associates facing prison time.

Stone's lawyers asked Jackson, an Obama appointee on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, for a new trial in a sealed motion submitted last week. Jackson said that Stone's sentence will be delayed from going into effect until after the motion is settled.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/483739-federal-judge-sentences-roger-stone

 

[timosman]

https://twitter.com/DrDenaGrayson/status/1230556202779602947

 

[dannno]

https://twitter.com/DrDenaGrayson/status/1230556202779602947

I heard exactly one person in the crowd chanting "lock him up".

 

[timosman]

I heard exactly one person in the crowd chanting "lock him up".

And that's how rumors get started ....

 

[phill4paul]

I heard exactly one person in the crowd chanting "lock him up".

CNN's camera man.

 

[Swordsmyth]

I heard exactly one person in the crowd chanting "lock him up".

RonZ?

 

[Valli6]

Stone's attorneys have filed a motion to disqualify Judge Amy Berman Jackson

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/roger-stone-prison-judge-116696
by KYLE CHENEY (Politico)
02/21/2020 11:31 PM EST

...moved Friday to disqualify the judge in his case, claiming her remarks at his sentencing rendered her unable to fairly rule on his bid for a new trial.

Stone's lawyers say, in particular, that Judge Amy Berman Jackson's decision to assert that jurors in the case "served with integrity" strikes at the heart of Stone's motion for a new trial, which they indicated is largely based on whether at least one juror was inappropriately biased against him.

"Whether the subject juror (and perhaps others) served with 'integrity' is one of the paramount questions presented in the pending Motion," Stone's lawyers argued. "The Court’s ardent conclusion of 'integrity' indicates an inability to reserve judgment on an issue which has yet been heard."

Berman Jackson made her remark during an impassioned rebuke of the arguments Stone's legal team offered during his trial. She said that Stone and his lawyers minimized the significance of his effort to frustrate congressional investigators as they sought to understand Russia's interference in the 2016 election, a grave national security challenge.

"Sure, the defense is free to say: So what? Who cares?" Berman Jackson said. "But, I'll say this: Congress cared. The United States Department of Justice and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia that prosecuted the case and is still prosecuting the case cared. The jurors who served with integrity under difficult circumstances cared. The American people cared. And I care."...

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/roger-stone-prison-judge-116696