DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Former Roger Stone prosecutor says DOJ exerted political influence to push for lighter sentence

Aaron Zelinsky said prosecutors were warned that "we could 'lose our jobs' if we did not toe the line."

A government lawyer said he resigned from the team prosecuting President Donald Trump's longtime confidant Roger Stone because the Justice Department inappropriately pushed for a more lenient sentence.

"I have never seen political influence play a role in prosecutorial decision making, with one exception: United States v. Roger Stone," federal prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

Zelinsky was one of four prosecutors who withdrew from the case in February when they were asked to submit a revised legal filing that played down Stone's criminal conduct and invited the judge to impose a lesser sentence. The Justice Department pressured the line prosecutors to "water down and in some cases outright distort" the nature of Stone's conduct, Zelinsky said.

"What I heard — repeatedly — was that Roger Stone was bring treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the president," he said. He said Tim Shea, whom Attorney General William Barr appointed as acting U.S. attorney in Washington, "was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of Justice to cut Stone a break."

Zelinsky did not say who he thought was exerting the pressure. But he said supervisors told him that Shea gave Stone favorable treatment "because he was afraid of the president."

One of the supervisors said accommodating political pressures was unethical and wrong, Zelinsky said, but "we were instructed that we should go along with the U.S. attorney's instructions because this case 'was not the hill worth dying on' and that we could 'lose our jobs' if we did not toe the line."

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Stone to three years, four months in prison for lying to Congress about his efforts to discover what WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange planned to do with emails associated with Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign that were hacked by the Russians. She denied Stone's motion for a new trial, rejecting his claim that a juror was biased against him.

Zelinsky and the other career prosecutors initially recommended a sentence of seven to nine years. But Barr intervened and directed the government to submit a new court filing, saying a three- to four-year sentence would be "more line with the typical sentences" in similar cases. The reversal came hours after Trump tweeted that the original sentencing recommendation was "a horrible and very unfair situation."

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Barr insisted that he acted on his own and had been unaware of the president's tweet until after he directed the change. In a television interview, he said the president's tweets were making it harder for him to do his job.

Stone was ordered to report to a federal prison in Georgia on June 30. But his lawyers asked the judge Tuesday to postpone his voluntary reporting date to Sept. 3 "in light of his heightened risk of serious medical consequences from exposure to the COVID-19 virus in the close confines" of a prison. The Justice Department does not oppose the postponement, his lawyers said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice...e-push-n1231931

Trump's personal lawyer Bill Barr strikes again.

65 faculty members from AG Barr’s law school alma mater say he has ‘failed to fulfill his oath of office’

Law professors and faculty from George Washington University Law School, Attorney General William Barr’s alma mater, said in a letter Tuesday he has “failed to fulfill his oath of office to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ “

The rebuke comes after continued fallout over the departure of Geoffrey Berman, the federal prosecutor ousted over the weekend by the Trump administration, and adds to a chorus of criticism over Barr’s actions as attorney general. Barr received his Juris Doctor degree from the law school in 1977, and while serving as attorney general under then-President George H.W. Bush he received an honorary degree from the university in 1992.

In a statement signed by 65 faculty and professors from the law school, the group wrote that Barr’s actions as attorney general “have undermined the rule of law, breached constitutional norms, and damaged the integrity and traditional independence of his office and of the Department of Justice.”

“We include members of both major political parties, and of none,” they wrote. “We have different legal specialties and represent a broad spectrum of approaches to the law.”

CNN reached out to the Justice Department for comment on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, the New York City Bar Association said in a letter sent to House and Senate leaders that Barr is unfit for the “high position he occupies in our federal government” and should step aside.

The association cited a series of actions, including Berman’s ouster, that “form an overwhelming public impression of an Attorney General whose primary loyalty is to the President who appointed him, not to the American public or the rule of law.”

Signatories to the law school letter include president and CEO of the National Bar Association Alfreda Robinson and interim dean of the school Christopher Alan Bracey.

“[Barr] obfuscated and misled the American public about the results of the Mueller investigation. He wrongfully interfered in the day-to-day activities of career prosecutors, and continues to do so, bending the criminal justice system to benefit the President’s friends and target those perceived to be his enemies,” the law school letter read.

The group also criticized the attorney general for reportedly ordering the clearing out of protesters with police tactics ahead of President Donald Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square and the President’s subsequent photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church earlier this month.

“At a critical moment in American history, Attorney General Barr could have been a leader in protecting Americans’ First Amendment right to express their outrage at our nation’s long history of institutional racism, and police brutality against people of color. Instead, Attorney General Barr stands on the wrong side of history,” the statement also said.

Barr’s actions, the statement continued, “have posed, and continue to create, a clear and present danger to the even-handed administration of justice, to civil liberties, and to the constitutional order.”

Democrats, including most recently Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, have called for Barr to resign. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, who has criticized Barr for removing Berman, said on Monday during an interview with MSNBC that he is planning to subpoena Barr for a testimony. The New York Democrat also told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday he thinks impeaching Barr over the move would be a “waste of time” and instead would look at withholding $50 million from the Department of Justice in an effort to punish the attorney general.

“I don’t think calls for his impeachment are premature any more than calls for the President’s impeachment were premature, but they are a waste of time at this point,” Nadler said on “State of the Union.” “We’ve seen a pattern of … Barr corruptly impeding all these investigations, so this is just more of the same.”

In February, more than 2,000 former Justice Department officials signed a statement calling for the attorney general to resign.

https://abc17news.com/politics/national-...oath-of-office/

Barr is loyal to Trump. He's not loyal to us. Those of you who love Trump probably no issue with that, but what if it were Obama that the AG was loyal to. To the exclusion to all else? would you like that?

j/c...

It's the new Norm and the Trump supporters don't care.

OK...

Eric Holder: 'I'm still the president's wingman'

By JOSH GERSTEIN

04/04/2013 12:31 PM EDT




Attorney General Eric Holder brushed off a question Thursday about when he might leave the administration. Instead, the top lawman professed his allegiance to President Barack Obama.

"I’m still enjoying what I’m doing, there’s still work to be done. I’m still the President’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy. So we’ll see," Holder said in an interview on the Tom Joyner radio show.

https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2013/04/eric-holder-im-still-the-presidents-wingman-160861

Now all you need to do is show all the court cases where Holder interfered to protect Obama and his cronies.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman. Let's look at this one for a minute.

First Barr said he resigned. Of course we found out that was a lie.

Then, Barr said Trump fired him. Trump denied firing him. Yet still he was fired.

Trump wanted to install a guy who had never prosecuted a case before in his life as his replacement.

Come to find out he obviously had no idea how the process works and failed in that attempt.

You couldn't make this kind of scummy crap up if you tried.

Jim Jordan on Stone sentence: 'Never forget what they did,' Barr cleaning up mess from Obama's DOJ

The New Black Panther Party

"You may remember images and video from Election Day 2008, with members of the New Black Panther Party standing outside a Philadelphia polling place wearing military garb making racial remarks and discouraging people from voting. A voter intimidation case against the New Black Panthers began weeks before Obama took office. It was an open-and-shut case, and the New Black Panthers didn’t even show up in court to defend themselves, assuring the government’s victory in the case. Then in May 2009, the case was inexplicably dropped by Attorney General Eric Holder".


Fast and Furious...Most know this case and the death of hundred of Mexican Nationals. Mexican Government is still investigating.

So all you have are cases that involved zero Obama cronies and you provide zero evidence of a cover up orchestrated by Holder.

Oh yeah you could...check out when Obama fired Gerald Walpin!

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ma...redator-n398683

Suppose you provide sources as I have done. And show how anyone was trying to cover up for their friends and allies.

j/c...

I've said for a long time that Barr is as bad or worse than Trump when it comes to undermining Norms and perverting our institutions. He got his position by writing to Trump and telling him his belief is essentially that the POTUS is above the law. He's been acting like Trump's personal henchman since.

"that no person is above the law."

illegal aliens in sanctuary cities prove that wrong, every day!

So you literally deflect every time someone has an argument.

Here's a quick question: Do you believe President Trump is above the law?

No deflection, no "what about" with no evidence.

Gee who would’ve ever thunk that? The party of law and order? Nah LMAO.

nope

Do you believe Biden is above the law?

I could also argue the ENTIRE Mueller investigation exerted political influence as well. What do you have to say about that? It was concluded to be a complete sham.

The Republicans that initiated the Mueller investigation? You talking about them?

As for the Mueller investigation and concluding it was a sham - maybe, if you listened to Barr and Trump and didn't pay attention to what Mueller actually said.

Oh, you mean because Barr determined Trump was off the hook? Because the rest of us saw the evidence and the coverup much differently. Trump is and was guilty of collusion and has openly done it again since. Trump is and was guilty of obstruction and has openly done it again since. Barr has acted as his legal-political henchman.

j/c...

Childish.

Not going to be able to do that..

Nope but as typically happens, the subject is changed....