The Daily Signal - What You Need to Know About Roger Stone’s Trial and Sentencing

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

What has Roger Stone been convicted of? Are President Donald Trump’s tweets about his sentence inappropriate? Have past presidents ever gotten involved in proposed sentences? Was the jury for Stone biased? John Malcolm, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, joins the show to explain it all. We also cover the following stories: President Trump suggests Sen. Chris Murphy's interaction with Iran may have violated Logan Act. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, praises Trump for commuting his sentence. Angered by a recent op-ed, China kicks out Wall Street Journal reporters. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, February 20th. I'm Jared Stetman. And I'm Kate Trinco. Today, we're chatting with Heritage Foundation legal expert John Malcolm about the Roger Stone trial, President Trump's tweets, and Attorney General William Barr's actions. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. A top Pentagon policy official who warned against withholding aid to you guys. Crane resigned on Wednesday at President Trump's request.

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, John Rood, wrote in his resignation letter, It is my understanding from Secretary Mark Esper that you requested my resignation from serving as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Senior administration officials appointed by the president serve at the pleasure of the president, and therefore, as you have requested, I am providing my resignation effect of February 28, 2020. Trump wrote in response on Twitter, I would like to say, to thank John Rood for a service to our country and wish him well in his future endeavors.

According to CNN, Rude had several other policy disagreements with the administration before he was pushed out. President Donald Trump criticized Senator Chris Murphy in a tweet. Murphy, a Democrat who represents Connecticut recently met with Iran's foreign minister. Murphy tweeted, it's dangerous not to talk to adversaries especially amidst a cycle of escalation. Now President Trump is tweeting, Carrie and Murphy ill-lawful. legally violated the Logan Act. This is why Iran is not making a deal, must be dealt with strongly, and attaching to that another tweet by Judicial Watch's Tom Fidden that suggests Murphy and former Secretary of State John Kerry should be prosecuted. Carrey communicated with Iran prior to the

U.S. withdrawing from the Iran deal, urging Iran to stay in the deal. The Logan Act banned citizens from negotiating with other nations without the approval of the U.S. government. Former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, whose 14-year prison term for various corruption charges, was commuted by President Trump, called himself a freed political prisoner at a press conference on Tuesday. In a video posted by ABC 7 News, Blagojevich thanked Trump. Let me just say a couple of things. First of all, the obvious I want to say. And then I know I speak for Patty and Amy and Annie, and obviously, we want to express our most profound. and everlasting gratitude to President Trump.

How do you properly thank someone who's given you back the freedom that was stolen from you? He didn't have to do this. The Republican president, I was a Democratic governor. Doing this does nothing to help his politics. President Trump is a man who is tough and outspoken, but he also has a kind heart. And this is an act of kindness, and I also believe it's the beginning of the process to actually turn it in just. into a justice.

China has kicked out three Wall Street Journal reporters. The reason? An op-ed in the journal that none of the reporters had anything to do with. The opinion piece, written by Walter Russell Mead, was headlined, China is the real sick man of Asia, and featured criticism of how China has handled coronavirus. A China foreign ministry spokesman said, per the journal, regrettably, what the Wall Street Journal has done so far is nothing.

but parrying and dodging its responsibility, and the Chinese people do not welcome those media that speak racially discriminatory language and maliciously slander and attack China. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement, The United States condemns China's expulsion of three Wall Street Journal foreign correspondence. Mature, responsible countries understand that a free press reports facts and expresses opinions. The correct response is to present counter arguments, not restrict speech. The United States hopes that the Chinese people will enjoy the same access to accurate information and freedom of speech that Americans enjoy. Next up, we'll talk to John Malcolm, a legal expert

at the Heritage Foundation, about the Roger Stone trial in President Trump's comments. If you're tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger and bigger government, government, it's time to partner with the most impactful conservative organization in America. We're the Heritage Foundation, and we're committed to solving the issues America faces. Together, we'll fight back against the rising tide of homegrown socialism, and we'll fight for conservative solutions that are making families more free and more prosperous. But we can't do it without you. Please join us at heritage.org.

So today, Roger Stone, whose exact connection with President Donald Trump is a little confusing, but who has known him for many years and has engaged in conversations with him, is supposed to be sentenced after being convicted on various charges, including witness tampering and lying to prosecutors. Trump has been tweeting about Stone's possible sentence and jail time, and that has ignited plenty of controversy. Joining us today to unpack all this is John Malcolm, who heads the Meese Center for Lerner, and that has been a week. legal and judicial studies at the Heritage Foundation. John, thanks for joining us. Good to be with you, Kate. So let's start at the beginning here. What exactly was Roger Stone convicted for?

All right. Well, Roger Stone, first of all, is a long-time Republican operative, and he's a somewhat bizarre guy. He literally goes back to the Nixon days. In fact, he has, I believe, tattooed on his back, an image of Richard Nixon. So he's known. Which you can, I would imagine, is not a popular tattoo image. Yeah, no, I wouldn't think so, but he's happily married and I assume his wife likes it.

And he's known Donald Trump a long time. And in the run up to the election, Roger Stone was making public statements about stuff that WikiLeaks had and would be releasing. At the time, the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was hold up in the end. Ecuadorian embassy in London. And it appears to be no question that Roger Stone was trying to reach out to WikiLeaks, to get to Julian Assange, to find out just what dirt they had and what they were going to be releasing and when they were going to be releasing it. And he was communicating with some people in the Trump campaign, some have suggested directly

with Trump that, you know, he knew what WikiLeaks was all about. Congress ended up having hearings on all of this and Roger Stone testified. And for reasons that frankly escaped me, Roger Stone said that his contact with Julian Assange was through a New York radio show host named Randy Credico. Credico had done a radio interview with Julian Assange. Apparently, as it turns out, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller got emails and text messages from Roger Stone, but his attempts to contact Julian Assange and it's unclear he ever actually succeeded in contacting Julian Assange was not through Randy Credico. It was through a guy named Jerome Corsi, who apparently has a history of laying out conspiracy

theories. And so when Roger Stone went to Randy Crettoe. Credico when he said, you need to tell Congress, you need to tell the FBI, you need to tell them that you were my contact with Julian Assange or else you should just take the fifth and not say anything. Credico refused to do this. He said, look, they're going to find out that I haven't had anything to do with Julian Asage other than the fact that I did a radio interview with him once.

And I'm not going to lie. At which point, Roger Stone said, he said, you should. should prepare to die. And by the way, I'm also going to take away your therapy dog, Bianca. And since you can't get by without Bianca, then, you know, you're going to be in a world of hurt. Now, you know, just a side note, not only is this a complicated soap opera, but this could only happen with someone like Roger Stone, who you said is a notorious operative. Absolutely.

Now, Randy Credico testified at trial back last November, and Stone was convicted of obstruction of justice and witness tampering and making false statements to Congress into the FBI. For his part, Credico has written a letter to the sentencing judge, Judge Amy Berman-Jackson, and I said, I didn't take any of these threats. Seriously, I mean, if he'd gone out and said something publicly, somebody else might hurt me. That worried me a little bit. But, you know, this was just a bellicose tirade. These are his words.

And it was just stone being stone, all bark and no bite. And he has in fact recommended that Judge Jackson not send Roger Stone to prison. All right. That all leads up to what happened with these sentencing recommendations. Right. So let's talk about that. Sure. Last week, President Trump tweeted out a news story from The Daily Caller, which said that the prosecutors had recommended up to nine years in jail for Stone.

Trump wrote, this is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side as nothing has. happens to them, cannot allow this miscarriage of justice. Was it inappropriate for Trump to share his view here? Inappropriate? Quite possibly. I mean, I wouldn't have done it if I were him. Not just because of that. He won created an appearance as if he was attempting to interfere in a politically sensitive case. But if I were Roger Stone, I think this would be one of those instances where I would say, you know, if the president was trying to help me, Mr. President,

don't help me. Because in addition to writing something that might arguably irritate the judge who's about to sentence Roger Stone, he then sent out another tweet that said, isn't this the same Judge Jackson who put Paul Manafort in solitary, which I'm sure would not endear Judge Jackson to Donald Trump? In addition to the fact that Judge Jackson has nothing to do with Paul Manafort, going to solitary. That would be something that the Bureau of Prisons would determine. But this all happened right on the heels of the Department of Justice filing a sentencing recommendation that suggested that the original recommendation, which you said was correct, was seven to nine years, was inappropriate and that the sentence should be something far less than seven to nine years. The reason how they, the prosecutor

got to the seven to nine years is they have these federal sentencing guidelines, which were all advisory. The judge doesn't have to pay attention to these sentencing guidelines, but their advisory. And part of that guidelines calculation was an eight-level enhancement for the physical threats that Stone had made to Credico. But in light of the fact that Credico said, ah, the guy is full of it. You know, he's just all bark, no bite. That's just stone being stone.

Bill Barr looked at this and said, this is a 67-year-old guy with no criminal record whatsoever. This threat enhancement is a kind of thing that's usually reserved for mafia hitmen who make really serious threats and occasionally carry out those threats. So if you take away that eight-level enhancement, then the guidelines calculation comes to somewhere between three and four years that that is probably a more appropriate sentence. That prompted the four prosecutors to immediately leave the case. One of them resigned, in fact, from the Department of Defense. You justice and for all kinds of people to just go nuts saying, you know, how dare Bill Barr attempt to interfere with the recommendations of career prosecutors?

The fact, of course, that they are line prosecutors and he is the Senate-confirmed Attorney General of the United States. Doesn't appear to really enter into anybody's calculus. How dare the boss actually tell an underling what recommendation to make in a particular sentence, you know, a sentence in a particular case. Not to mention the fact, of course, that Judge Jackson is going to. to be able to impose whatever sentence she feels appropriate. She could give Roger Stone nine years.

She could give him more than nine years if she want to. Or she could go along with the recommendation from General Barr or the defense attorney's recommendation, which is between 15 and 20 months, 21 months. She could even go with Randy Credico's recommendation of no jail time whatsoever. And of course – He is a good friend. Yeah. And well, and she, after all, sat through the trial.

She knows all of the facts in this case. She's also not going to be terribly favorably disposed to Roger Stone because in the run-up to the trial, she had imposed a gag order and had told Roger Stone stop mouthing off to the press and stop issuing statements, a gag order that he violated repeatedly. And she considered revoking his bail and having him sit in jail up until the time of his trial, but she decided at the end not to do that. So you mentioned that, of course, you know, boss is often tell subordinate. it's what to do. But when it comes to the DOJ and sentencing recommendations, how common is it for

whether by bar or someone below him but above prosecutors, how common is it to revise the sentencing recommendation? Well, there they have a point. It's pretty rare. Usually sentencing recommendations are made by the prosecutors involved in the case. The attorney general doesn't usually get involved in making sentencing recommendations. If it's a terrorist case, and perhaps they'll make a recommendation to go to the max. But, you know, Barr is saying that he felt he was misled by the prosecutors. It was obviously some kind of consultation before this original recommendation was filed. There's been some notion that perhaps they misled a general bar as to what recommendation they were going to make.

And at the end of the day, you know, it is up to Attorney General Barr to determine what he thinks is fair. It's entirely whether he should have done it or shouldn't have done it, you know, as a matter of people can debate. But it's certainly within his prerogative to do it. And frankly, a nine-year sentence for a 67-year-old man with no record whatsoever. And in a nonviolent defense strikes me as a former prosecutor myself of being a bit harsh. So to return to Trump's tweets, is there any history of presidents getting involved when an individual is being sentenced like this? Or, you know, I mean, the general reporting here is, ah, this is unprecedented Trump's D.C., you know. Is that actually historically warranted that level of surprise that he spoke out like this?

Well, presidents don't usually get involved in sentencing recommendations. They have their own way of dealing with these sorts of things. So, for instance, George W. Bush, after Scooter Libby was convicted and he was sentenced to prison time, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence. He left his conviction in place, but he said, you're not going to go to jail. Actually, President Trump has now pardoned Scooter Libby. They don't usually say anything in advance of the sentencing as to what sort of a sentence somebody ought to get. I wouldn't say it's completely unprecedented, though. I mean, I remember in one of the Barack Obama, President Obama opined that if the Gitmo detainees, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts had, you

were proven guilty that they should get the death penalty. That caused a certain amount of problems because the president is directly involved in appointing people to oversee proceedings down in Gitmo. So he caught some flak for making that and all kinds of motions were filed by the defense attorneys saying that now the death penalty should be off the table because President Obama had said that. That's the only instance that I can recall in which a president has weighed in advance of in that case, even a trial, much less the sentencing. But that doesn't mean that it hasn't happened before. It probably has. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who represents New York, wrote to the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking for an investigation. He wrote in a letter to Horowitz, this situation has all the indicia of improper political interference in a criminal prosecution.

Do you think Horowitz is going to investigate this? Well, he might launch an investigation into it to see whether there were any departmental guidelines that were violated. I don't think at the end of the day he's going to find any. Both General Barr and President Trump have said that they did not communicate with each other about the case. And in fact, General Barr has said that the revised sentencing recommendation had been. been prepared and either had been filed or was about to be filed before the president tweeted out what he did. And he has somewhat pushed back, rather strongly, actually, on the president by saying that presidential

tweets in pending Department of Justice cases, quote, make it impossible for me to do my job. Now, the president has the right to his Twitter account just like anybody else. But again, I don't think that he particularly did General Barr any favors. And I don't think he did Roger Stone any favors. So as you mentioned, there does seem right now to be some tension between Barr and Trump. And after, as you said, you know, Barr mentioned the tweets were making his job impossible. Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he was making Barr's job harder. And he called himself the chief law enforcement officer.

So what exactly should the relationship between a president and the head of the DOJB? Well, that has changed over time. So under the Constitution, it is the president under Article 2 who has the duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. There has been an attorney general for as long as we've had a U.S. government. It was one of the very, very first cabinet positions that was created. But since Watergate, there has been a particular sensitivity about the White House. being involved in particularly sensitive DOJ cases. And so there have been allegations of attorneys general being improperly influenced by president. So Senator Schumer is now saying this about Bill Barr and President Trump. Others said it about Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump. Famously, Eric Holder referred to himself as Obama's wingman when he was

was attorney general. I mean, I think that, look, the president, he's the one with the constitutional authority to do this. I suppose that that would give him a very strong argument that he could outright dismiss a case if he wanted to in terms of taking an action that he could take constitutionally. It does not mean that he wouldn't pay a political price for doing that and perhaps should pay a political price for doing something like that. In terms of, you know, does he have the authority under the Constitution to do it?

Yeah, he's the person that has the duty to take care of that the laws be faithfully executed. Okay. 2,400 people who say that they are former Justice Department officials have signed a petition calling on bar to resign. They write, although there are times when political leadership appropriately weighs in on individual prosecutions, it is unheard of for the department's top leaders to overrule line prosecutors who, were following established policies in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the president as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case. Has Barr done anything wrong or anything that leads to a fair case for asking him to resign? No. So I've looked at that list. I actually know a decent number of people who signed that that letter. I was disappointed to see their

their signatures there. Again, it's not only Attorney General's bar's prerogative to file his own sentencing recommendation, but in the case of a 67-year-old individual with no prior record who's convicted of a non-violent offense to come in and say that nine-year sentence is too harsh, I think, is an appropriate thing to do. You know, this is the same general bar who is being attacked, who the department is now just announced that Jim Comey was not going to be prosecuted for leaking. Andy McCabe, the former acting FBI director, is not going to be prosecuted for allegedly

lying to the FBI. General Barr, who pledged during his confirmation hearing that he was going to allow Bob Mueller to do his work completely unimpeded and then released virtually the entire Mueller report that was prepared, even though that was a confidential report. report prepared for General Barr that he could have said, thank you very much for your report. I'm not releasing it to the public. He even permitted the Roger Stone case to go forward, and all he has done is suggested a sentence of three to four years might be more appropriate than a sentence of seven to nine

years. So when he was doing all of these things, probably, in fact, undoubtedly against the personal wishes of President Trump, nobody is praising him. him. But when they do something that is more in the direction of showing some leniency towards Roger Stone, everybody calls for his resignation. In fact, Senator Elizabeth Warren calls for him to be impeached. And Representative Maxine Waters in California has called for him to be disbarred and for him to share a prison cell with President Trump and Roger Stone. What a terrible sitcom.

Yeah, no one has yet suggested drawing and quartering Bill Barr, but I assume that's coming next. Sure, it's just a Twitter eruption away. So to go back to the Stone trial itself, there's been calls for a new trial. There have been accusations that the jury for the Stone trial was biased. Fox News reports it emerged that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had denied a defense request to strike a potential juror who was Obama-era press official with admitted anti-Trump views and whose husband worked at the same Justice Department division that handled the probe leading to Stone's arrest. And another Stone juror, Seth Cousins, donated to former Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke and other progressive causes. Fox News also said the four women on the jury,

who I'm not going to name, had a history of democratic activism and a string of anti-Trump left-wing social media posts. Trump seemed to suggest in a tweet, what else, earlier this week, that quoted Andrew Napolitano that he agrees that Stone should get a new trial. Do you have any opinion on this? Well, the tweets from the jury for person were pretty serious. At one point, I think she referred to the president as a hashtag clan president. These are, you know, look, these are serious issues. I assume that a motion for new trial has been filed with Judge Jackson.

She's a very good judge. Now, in light of the fact that I gather Stone's trial team tried to get these jurors struck and she declined to strike them for a cause. She's unlikely to grant a motion for a new trial. But that's a serious issue and it will get reviewed by the Court of Appeals. And perhaps Judge Jackson will, you know, look at all the evidence that's gathered and possibly reconsider. It's unlikely, but it's been known to happen. Okay. John, thanks so much for doing.

us today. Great to be with you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcast to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Shrinco and Rachel Del Judas. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Fully Arampersad, Mark Geine, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.