- Jun 6, 2007
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President Trump just yesterday provided another reason why he is unfit to be President of the United States of America when he said that he, rather than the Attorney General of the United States, is the "chief law enforcement officer of the country" and "I chose not to be involved (in criminal cases). I'm allowed to be involved (in criminal cases). I could be involved (in criminal cases) if I wanted to be.". One of the fundamental principles of our democracy a hallmark why our country is a wonderful and could not be any better in a critical area is that enforcement of the country's criminal laws is separated from politics, politicians can neither punish their enemies nor help their friends through the use of the criminal justice system. No Mr. President you cannot overrule the Attorney General on whether to bring a criminal case against a person(s) and what to charge in that case or any other key aspect of such a case. Mr. President this is a fundamental value of America it is not open to debate nor subject to change in fact people have a fundamental, natural right to be free from having political motivation be a cause in a criminal case being brought against them if you would like a legalese argument one could say it stems from a person's natural "due process" rights!
That is not to say Mr. President that you are deprived of your free speech rights in this area which everyone else has. Actually, I one hundred percent agree with you that the seven to nine year prison sentence recommendation for the Roger Stone case is unfair going even further I think the whole prosecution of Roger Stone was inappropriate and a waste of Department of Justice and Court and law enforcement resources; with crimes like the sale of the synthetic opioid, fentanyl, killing scores of people, the epidemic of illegal guns on the street and Medicare fraud running into the billions of dollars a year how can a responsible prosecutor justify using system resources on this silly case. Roger Stone is an eccentric, mouthy, blowhard person any reasonable prudent person would suspect the trustworthiness of anything coming out of Mr. Stone's mouth, it is a total waste of law enforcement resources to go after him he is not worth it. Maybe Roger knew Julian Assange or maybe he used an intermediary to get advance notice of the public releases of the hacked DNC e-mails that Wikileaks got from the Russians it really doesn't matter WikiLeaks and the Russians are the serious criminals here they were the hackers and users of the hacked files at best Roger was just a conduit to the Trump campaign to help the campaign make the best of the upcoming release if the heads up notice actually happened WikiLeaks or the Russians could have used countless other people as such a conduit. As for the witness intimidation charge where Roger wanted the radio host, Randy Credico, to not testify before Congress or lie to Congress so as to maintain Roger's story that Credico was Roger's intermediary to Julian Assange and if Credico didn't play along that Roger was going to take Credico's therapy dog away from him the DOJ can't be serious. These facts are like something one would see in a Chevy Chase or Will Ferrill movie look at Roger Stone he is so unathletic he probably couldn't even catch and hold on to Credico's dog let alone take him away! If President Trump was really concerned about these issues wisdom would have called for him to not publicly make any statements about these issues but rather have the White House General Counsel write a letter to the Attorney General from the General Counsel saying we know that these decisions are yours to make but the White House thinks justice and good public policy calls for x, y and z.
All these former prosecutors signing this letter calling for the Attorney General Barr to resign their behavior is a disgrace they of all people should know you don't label someone as liable without the proof. There is no evidence that Barr allowed himself to be directed by the President to intervene in the Stone case. In regards to DOJ independence if one really cares about this critical reality the facts indicate William Barr is exactly the person you want in the job he has displayed extraordinary virtue in this area publicly scolding President Trump to stop the tweets that put into question the DOJ independence. In regards to not prosecuting Edward McCabe although Mr. McCabe did not show integrity in being honest with disclosure to the FBI Director and the FBI investigators about the disclosures to the media the actual disclosure by McCabe were a prudent and good move meaning in the interest of the DOJ; by this I mean McCabe disclosed to a Wall Street Journal journalist that there was an open investigation of the Clinton Foundation but he only did this because the media reports were false which was that the DOJ pressured the FBI to shut down the investigation of the Clinton Foundation; McCabe was protecting the FBI's reputation as being an impartial nonpolitical law enforcement agency - the DOJ is doing the right thing in not prosecuting McCabe over this matter!
That is not to say Mr. President that you are deprived of your free speech rights in this area which everyone else has. Actually, I one hundred percent agree with you that the seven to nine year prison sentence recommendation for the Roger Stone case is unfair going even further I think the whole prosecution of Roger Stone was inappropriate and a waste of Department of Justice and Court and law enforcement resources; with crimes like the sale of the synthetic opioid, fentanyl, killing scores of people, the epidemic of illegal guns on the street and Medicare fraud running into the billions of dollars a year how can a responsible prosecutor justify using system resources on this silly case. Roger Stone is an eccentric, mouthy, blowhard person any reasonable prudent person would suspect the trustworthiness of anything coming out of Mr. Stone's mouth, it is a total waste of law enforcement resources to go after him he is not worth it. Maybe Roger knew Julian Assange or maybe he used an intermediary to get advance notice of the public releases of the hacked DNC e-mails that Wikileaks got from the Russians it really doesn't matter WikiLeaks and the Russians are the serious criminals here they were the hackers and users of the hacked files at best Roger was just a conduit to the Trump campaign to help the campaign make the best of the upcoming release if the heads up notice actually happened WikiLeaks or the Russians could have used countless other people as such a conduit. As for the witness intimidation charge where Roger wanted the radio host, Randy Credico, to not testify before Congress or lie to Congress so as to maintain Roger's story that Credico was Roger's intermediary to Julian Assange and if Credico didn't play along that Roger was going to take Credico's therapy dog away from him the DOJ can't be serious. These facts are like something one would see in a Chevy Chase or Will Ferrill movie look at Roger Stone he is so unathletic he probably couldn't even catch and hold on to Credico's dog let alone take him away! If President Trump was really concerned about these issues wisdom would have called for him to not publicly make any statements about these issues but rather have the White House General Counsel write a letter to the Attorney General from the General Counsel saying we know that these decisions are yours to make but the White House thinks justice and good public policy calls for x, y and z.
All these former prosecutors signing this letter calling for the Attorney General Barr to resign their behavior is a disgrace they of all people should know you don't label someone as liable without the proof. There is no evidence that Barr allowed himself to be directed by the President to intervene in the Stone case. In regards to DOJ independence if one really cares about this critical reality the facts indicate William Barr is exactly the person you want in the job he has displayed extraordinary virtue in this area publicly scolding President Trump to stop the tweets that put into question the DOJ independence. In regards to not prosecuting Edward McCabe although Mr. McCabe did not show integrity in being honest with disclosure to the FBI Director and the FBI investigators about the disclosures to the media the actual disclosure by McCabe were a prudent and good move meaning in the interest of the DOJ; by this I mean McCabe disclosed to a Wall Street Journal journalist that there was an open investigation of the Clinton Foundation but he only did this because the media reports were false which was that the DOJ pressured the FBI to shut down the investigation of the Clinton Foundation; McCabe was protecting the FBI's reputation as being an impartial nonpolitical law enforcement agency - the DOJ is doing the right thing in not prosecuting McCabe over this matter!
