Where Do We Go Now for Justice?

The only thing worse than a Trump is a Barr and a Trump.

If you like that combo for its boogaloo, then you go right ahead and vote for it. The majority of the rest of us won't be joining you. We actually think that our participation on November 3rd is our last chance to save the Republic. Our much touted "rule of law" has morphed -- just since Barr got confirmed as A.G. in Feb. 2019 -- into a kind of Soprano Family reality series, without the charm. Boss Donnie has an endless appetite for "a favor though" -- he often needs his henchmen sprung and there's some people who need whacking. William Barr has been there to pull the levers and make the hit.

The outrage of only last night -- the commutation of the seven felony convictions for Roger Stone (what! no outright pardon?) -- sprouted from Stone's loyal soldier act, his refusal to rat out the boss to save himself from prison. Rule of Law? No. One law for the boss and his associates, another for the rest of us.

William Barr laid the predicate for that inevitable outcome. He had overruled the sentencing recommendations for Stone made by his department's own career prosecutors -- with Boss Trump celebrating on Twitter like an Adderall-snorting Tony Montana -- which prompted four Justice Dept. career prosecutors to resign from the Stone case (one left the DOJ entirely). At Roger Stone's sentencing hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that it was pretty obvious to her that the president had been trying to subvert the rule of law by publicly attacking her, the jurors, and the Justice Department lawyers, all with the generous enablement of William Barr.

Gangster fashion

And that's really the least of it. Barr has been systematically decapitating U.S. Attorney offices in the jurisdictions currently conducting investigations of Boss Trump and his associates -- the Washington, DeeCee, office and the Southern District of New York. For Washington's US Attorney office, Barr got rid of the competent woman in charge and put in his right-hand aide Timothy Shea. The Washington office was handling both the Roger Stone and the Michael Flynn prosecutions, and Shea has been helpful there, strewing the floor with marbles.

Barr also got rid of Geoffrey Berman in the Southern District of New York. Berman was investigating hush-money payments to various goomahs not to mention the "business activities" of Boss Trump's consigliere Rudy Guiliani.

We cannot stand for this, not as a people, not as a nation, not as a citizenry that has been brought up to believe in justice.

The Body Count -- Career Prosecutors in the US Department of Justice

A Reoccurring Feature on Who's Jumping Off Luxury Liner Trump

All four career prosecutors handling the case against Roger Stone withdrew from the legal proceedings yesterday — and one, Jonathan Kravis, quit his job entirely — after the Justice Department under Attorney General and Trump-enabler William Barr signaled it planned to undercut their sentencing recommendation for Trump’s longtime friend and confidant. 

The career prosecutors handling the case recommended that a judge sentence Stone — convicted in November of obstructing Congress and witness tampering — to between seven and nine years in federal prison. First, Trump attacked the prosecutors on Twitter. Then Barr's department, in an unprecedented interference with justice, also intervened.

One by one, the career prosecutors, two of whom had worked on Mueller’s investigation, filed notices in court of their intention to leave the case. Though none of the prosecutors gave a reason, their asking to do so was highly unusual and suggested they could not ethically affix their names to the government’s revised position. 

Former Justice Department officials and others characterized the department’s abrupt shift on the Stone case as an egregious example of the president and his attorney general manipulating federal law enforcement to serve their political interests. David Laufman, a former Justice Department official, called it a “shocking, cram-down political intervention” in the criminal justice process. “We are now truly at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment for the Justice Dept.,” he wrote on Twitter.

Eric H. Holder Jr., attorney general under President Barack Obama, said it was “unprecedented, wrong and ultimately dangerous.” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) said the move amounted to “obstruction of justice.”

“We are seeing a full-frontal assault on the rule of law in America,” Pascrell said. “Direct political interference in our justice system is a hallmark of a banana republic. Despite whatever Trump, William Barr, and their helpers think, the United States is a nation of laws and not an authoritarian’s paradise.”

How Fast Will Prez Trump Squash This New Russian Investigation?

Photo Ryan McGuire

News came out this morning that a multi-agency investigative team (including personnel from the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Treasury Department's financial crimes unit) have been looking into (and have evidently found) multiple contacts between top Trump campaign people and unnamed officials in the Russian government.

The investigation was leaked and then confirmed by a half-dozen of the investigators because "they feared the new administration would obstruct their efforts." As of noon today, Donald Trump will be in charge of all executive branch agencies, and as soon as he's confirmed, Jeff Sessions will be in charge of the FBI.

Three Trump campaign operatives were named as targets of the investigation: Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign director up until August 20, 2016; Carter Page, businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign; and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative and friend of Trump.

The NSC apparently has eavesdropped on conversations between these three and various officials in Russia and various Russia-friendly officials in the Ukraine. You can thank expanded eavesdropping laws put in place by the Bush administration after 9/11 for those intercepts.

Roger Stone

"Mr. Stone, a longtime friend of Mr. Trump’s, said in a speech in Florida last summer that he had communicated with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that published the hacked Democratic emails. During the speech, Mr. Stone predicted further leaks of documents, a prediction that came true within weeks."

Stone is denying today that he has any Russian contacts.

Paul Manafort

"The F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Manafort began last spring, and was an outgrowth of a criminal investigation into his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and for the country’s former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. In August, The Times reported that Mr. Manafort’s name had surfaced in a secret ledger that showed he had been paid millions in undisclosed cash payments. The Associated Press has reported that his work for Ukraine included a secret lobbying effort in Washington aimed at influencing American news organizations and government officials."

Manafort is calling the investigation "a Democrat Party dirty trick."

Carter Page

Page, a former Merrill Lynch banker, founded Global Energy Capital, an investment firm in New York that has done business with Russia. He's also been a foreign affairs advisor for Trump's transition.

Page decided to go one better than Manafort's denial: Page is blaming Hillary Clinton for this news.

Hahahaha!