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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Courage at Justice?

Courage at Justice?

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A lead prosecutor on the Roger Stone case, Aaron Zelinsky, abruptly resigned from the case after the DOJ said it would claw back a sentence recommendation issued yesterday. NBC:

The lead prosecutor in longtime self-described political dirty trickster Roger Stone’s criminal case abruptly resigned on Tuesday after the Justice Department said it planned to reduce the recommended sentence for the longtime Trump associate.

The Justice Department pulled back on its request to sentence Stone to seven to nine years in prison after President Donald Trump blasted the sentencing proposal as “a miscarriage of justice.”

“The department finds the recommendation extreme and excessive and will clarify its position later today,” a senior department official confirmed to NBC News.

Good for him. Barr is openly corrupting the DOJ to protect Trump and his criminal cronies. Career DOJ people will have to stand up for the integrity of the organization if they truly believe it’s worth defending.

ETA: Another resignation:

Reader Interactions

189Comments

  1. 1.

    the Conster

    We’re in serious trouble as long as Barr is in place. Who would have ever have imagined remembering Jeff Sessions without utter contempt?

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    Since he only resigned from this single case, I fully expect him to be fired and escorted out of the building for daring to oppose God-Emperor Trump’s divine will.

  4. 4.

    HumboldtBlue

    Trump and the GOP have corrupted the Federal Government.

    They confirm that OMB, including the general counsel’s office, was fully in the loop about the Pentagon’s concerns and took active steps to bury them. They also expose the extent to which OMB misled, and even lied to, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional investigative body, as the GAO tried to understand the circumstances surrounding the funding hold.

    To this day, and through these redacted documents, OMB is continuing its efforts to keep its knowledge of the Pentagon’s legal worries a secret, blacking out the portions of the emails where DoD officials voiced their concerns and where OMB staffers acknowledged them. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Paoletta reviewed the redactions before the documents were released.

     

     

  7. 7.

    James E Powell

    And the press/media continue to treat all of this as just regular politics. The same press/media that lost their minds when Hillary called racists deplorable.

    I don’t think I’m going to make it till November.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    I believe a second DOJ prosecutor has resigned as well.

    Hopefully the Dem candidates will amplify the theme: trumpov corrupts everything he touches.

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    I asked in an earlier thread if the DoJ’s action was moot; the trial judge had already heard the original sentencing recommendation, and she might concur that yeah, Stone should do 7 to 9 years.

    I also understand that the original recommendation was itself on the lenient side. There has to be a lower bound to the DoJ’s new sentencing proposal if it expects the judge to take it seriously.

  12. 12.

    E.

    Good Lord. Talking points are now that rogue prosecutors lied to their superiors about the sentence they were to recommend. These prosecutors are about to be doxxed, threatened, and ruined.

  16. 16.

    The Dangerman

    Perhaps the sentence recommendation can be pre-approved by the President? Sounds more efficient

    ETA: No, Donald, I see nothing in the rules that allow for “hookers and blow”.

  18. 18.

    barbequebob

    Expect that Stone will not only be pardoned after he gets his reduced sentence, but also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Trump, for courageously lying on behalf of Trump and the GOP. He’d throw in the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I figure even Trump realizes that can’t happen as long as Dems control the House (of course acts of bravery in combat against political opponent qualify for this award, if Trump says so).

  19. 19.

    The Moar You Know

    While I always wondered what it would be like to live under a strongman dictatorship, I didn’t actually want to, y’know, live under a strongman dictatorship.

     

    Also find myself wishing for Dems that were half as afraid of one of our candidates as the GOP is of their current success story.  Republican politicians are fucking terrified of Trump.  They’ll do anything he asks or even indicates he’d like to see happen.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

  21. 21.

    trollhattan

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yup. In a coincidental twist, corvids carry West Nile virus. We had a near wipeout of yellow-billed magpies ’round these parts but they seem to have bounced back, because I see them by the river again. Crows were reportedly dinged too, but not that you’d notice.

  22. 22.

    Anya

    I am surprised at the level of media’s passive acceptance of all of this corruption. The same media that lost its minds over Loretta Lynch’s unplanned meeting with Bill Clinton.  The thing is Republicans are away better at feigning outrage and amplifying their outrage and the media laps up that shit. Democrats are so measured that sometimes their voices get lost and they don’t have the media’s attention.

  23. 23.

    E.

    Sounds to me like they didn’t just withdraw from this case, they resigned from their jobs in the traditional meaning of the term. What am I missing??

  24. 24.

    janesays

    I hope Bill Barr gets cancer, suffers immensely, and then dies a lonely and miserable death.

    There, I said it.

  25. 25.

    The Moar You Know

    I asked in an earlier thread if the DoJ’s action was moot; the trial judge had already heard the original sentencing recommendation, and she might concur that yeah, Stone should do 7 to 9 years.

    @Amir Khalid: It is.  Judge Berman can sentence Stone to any term she wants.  And will; of that I have no doubt.

    And Trump will pardon him the day after.  And fire every single AUSA prosecutor that had anything to do with Stone’s prosecution at all.  Of that, too, I have no doubt.  He’d fire Judge Berman as well, but can’t.  But he’s gonna try.

  28. 28.

    Kent

    @Amir Khalid:

    I asked in an earlier thread if the DoJ’s action was moot; the trial judge had already heard the original sentencing recommendation, and she might concur that yeah, Stone should do 7 to 9 years.

    I also understand that the original recommendation was itself on the lenient side. There has to be a lower bound to the DoJ’s new sentencing proposal if it expects the judge to take it seriously.

    They are setting him up for a pardon.  If the judge deviates from whatever new lower sentencing recommendation the DOJ comes up with then Trump can claim a miscarriage of justice and pardon him on the grounds of “politically motivated excessive sentencing.”

  29. 29.

    Jeffro

    Looks like we’ll be doing Impeachment II: Barr Boogaloo before too much longer.

    Keep pounding, House Dems!  This white-hot fury ain’t going anywhere

  30. 30.

    The Dangerman

    @janesays:

    I hope Bill Barr gets cancer…

    Falls into “Act of God” territory. I think the message to future potential criminals should be an “Act of Man”. I want to see these fuckers tried and Supermaxed. 2 hots and a cot for the rest of their days.

  31. 31.

    Bnad

    @E.: About a week ago an image macro came up on my FB feed with the whistleblower’s name and picture, courtesy of a wingnut friend of mine.  I flagged it as harassment but a day later it was still there.  Somehow the second or third time I flagged it, a more extensive dialog appeared where I was assured the report would be followed up on, and the post was gone shortly thereafter.

    After this, I’ve taken to perusing my wingnut FB friends’ feeds from time to time for this sh*t.

  32. 32.

    Bruce K

    @janesays: I hope his suffering equals that of the children in the cages in the concentration camps by the border.

    No, wait – the traditional blessing/curse is to have what you visit upon others returned to you threefold, right?

  34. 34.

    Crashman06

    @Bnad: Facebook are bad actors in all of this. They have no interest or desire to actively police the misinformation on their platform.

  36. 36.

    The Moar You Know

    Facebook are bad actors in all of this. They have no interest or desire to actively police the misinformation on their platform.

    @Crashman06: Oh, but they do.  Put up something criticizing the right.  It’ll be taken down in an hour.

  38. 38.

    Mandalay

    @janesays:

    Nicolle Wallace seems genuinely aghast and horrified with every new revelation of corruption in this White House.

    If she really is “genuinely aghast and horrified with every new revelation of corruption” then she hasn’t been paying attention for the past three years.

    Sentient beings detect an ongoing pattern of behavior from the Trump Administration, and calibrate their reactions accordingly.

    Is anyone here still regularly “aghast and horrified” by things that Trump does? (To be clear, I don’t mean to diminish the awfulness of his ongoing behavior and actions, but after his conduct during the Mueller investigation and the impeachment hearing, what has happened today just seems like par for the course.)

  40. 40.

    MJS

    The concerns about a pardon are understandable, but the ads write themselves if Trump does that before the election. “Soft on crime” resonates, and there aren’t 5 voters who have sympathy for Roger Stone who wouldn’t otherwise be voting for Trump. I wouldn’t bet my house on it, but I think there’s a decent chance that regardless of what the sentence is, Roger cools his heels in prison until after the election.

  41. 41.

    chris

    Noted on Nicolle. The DC US attorney was appointed by Barr and has been in office for… eight days.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    Poor Susan Collins. She must be so disappointed. They’re not getting better- they’re getting worse!

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @Anya:

    The thing is Republicans are away better at feigning outrage and amplifying their outrage and the media laps up that shit.

    I’d be more vocal about, but I’m kind of busy tweeting about ambiguous phrases made by Democratic candidates that demonstrate their irredeemable perfidy.

  46. 46.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    “I believe that the president has learned from this case” and that he “will be much more cautious in the future.”

    ~ Susan Collins

  47. 47.

    Brachiator

    The lead prosecutor in longtime self-described political dirty trickster Roger Stone’s criminal case abruptly resigned on Tuesday after the Justice Department said it planned to reduce the recommended sentence for the longtime Trump associate.

    Let’s all say it together.  “Trump is the man.  Trump is a hero. Not only is he president, he is chief magistrate of the United States.  What Trump says is law. We love Big Brother.”

    It is so strange to watch democracy fall before our very eyes and to see so many of our fellow citizens applaud this travesty.  But they do.

    And Fox News and some rag called the Washington Examiner claims that the firings and resignations are simply Trump getting rid of Obama appointees.  Because of course, Democrats in general and Obama era appointees are, by definition, just not the right people for the job.

    All this means is that it becomes imperative to kick Trump’s ass to the curb, and to also boot out as many Republicans as possible. And make sure that they never work in government again.

  48. 48.

    TS (the original)

    @E.:

    From Wapo

    Jonathan Kravis, one of the prosecutors, wrote in a court filing he had resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney, leaving government entirely. Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, a former member of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team, said he was formally quitting his special assignment to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute Stone, though a spokeswoman said he will remain an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.

    So one resigned his appointment & one resigned from the department.

  49. 49.

    Cacti

    Senate Rs voted to normalize Executive Branch lawlessness.

    Expect the corruption to become even more brazen over the next 11-months. If Trump is defeated, his final act will be to issue pardons for himself and all of his accomplices before leaving office. That is if he doesn’t just try to declare himself president for life.

  53. 53.

    Kent

    @MJS: The concerns about a pardon are understandable, but the ads write themselves if Trump does that before the election. “Soft on crime” resonates, and there aren’t 5 voters who have sympathy for Roger Stone who wouldn’t otherwise be voting for Trump. I wouldn’t bet my house on it, but I think there’s a decent chance that regardless of what the sentence is, Roger cools his heels in prison until after the election.

    One would *think* that the ads would write themselves.  Trump is certainly the most target-rich environment in the history of politics.  Unfortunately, in real life they don’t “write themselves.”  Someone has to actually write them and the only one that seems to be doing that right now is Bloomberg.

    I personally think the best ad would be a running series about his tax cuts and the tax breaks he gave to his cronies and cabinet:

    Donald Trump:   gave himself x-million dollars in tax breaks

    Betsy DeVos:  Got $87 million in tax breaks from Trump

    Koch Brothers:  Got $1.9 billion in tax breaks from Trump

    Single mom in New Jersey working two jobs?  Got a tax increase

    rinse and repeat every single day with a new cast of characters.

  54. 54.

    dexwood

    @Jeffro: Skip the filter. Don’t drink that stuff. Why punish yourself? Just pour it out on the grave since it’s basically the same as piss.

  55. 55.

    Jeffro

    @Mandalay: I’ll be honest…the part of me that remembers how the U.S. used to function, with some semblance of the rule of law, is shocked each and every time one of these things hits the wires.

    Just three short years ago.  Unbelievable.  I would like all of my nerves to magically un-fray themselves, that’s for sure.  It is stressful living with such obviously corrupt morons and crooks running our government and pocketing the proceeds.

    But anyway, back to your question: yes, some part of me is still shocked, every time.  With the biggest shock of all that an entire political party could devolve into this, and for him…

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    @dexwood: It’s that or some other variety of American Light Beer Soda, I’m not picky. ;)

    But yeah, considering how many stops there are going to be on this ‘tour’, I might have to alternate between filtering it myself for some folks and just pouring out a few cans for others.

    Barr is definitely in the ‘filter’ category.

  57. 57.

    Marcopolo

    And deleted cause I had a reading comprehension issue.  Lol.

    Gawd, I hope that shit like this helps to keep Trump from getting re-elected.

    I’ll be calling my 2 D senators now to remind them that they sanctioned this lawlessness by voting to acquit Trump without even giving him a full trial with witnesses & documents.

  58. 58.

    cmorenc

    The piece de resistance of Trump’s corruption of justice, should he get a second term and the Rs hold the Senate even by a single vote, will be to nominate Bill Barr to the next vacancy on the US Supreme Court if Ruth B. Ginsburg can’t hold out four more years.

  60. 60.

    Kay

    For a long time with Trump, I thought people would resign. I thought one would inspire the next, because it’s a kind of standard, right? You’d think “well, am I less ethical than that guy? Hell no, if he’s going I have to, being that I’m obviously better than him”. The ranking that people do would start, because it’s a comparison.

    But the ball never got rolling because none of them were good enough to set a higher bar. That’s what I have found hard to get used to. I was as disappointed as Susan Collins.

  61. 61.

    bystander

    If only Nicole Wallace had decided to get on top of it in the 1990s instead of aiding and abetting Jr, Cheney et al.

    Pretty soon the DOJ will be The 700 Club School of Law’s biggest recruiter.

  62. 62.

    Kraux Pas

    @Marcopolo:I’ll be calling my 2 D senators now to remind them that they sanctioned this lawlessness by voting to acquit Trump without even giving him a full trial with witnesses & documents.

    Your D Senators did that?  Were they the 101st and 102nd votes? Because I thought the Ds all stuck together on convicting the bastard.

  63. 63.

    janesays

    @Mandalay: Good Lord. You’re creating a no win situation here. I was responding to @James E Powell‘s comment that the media doesn’t give a shit by pointing out an example of someone who clearly gives a shit.

    “Aghast and horrified” is not synonymous with “completely surprised”… it’s possible to watch all of the shit these awful people perpetrate everyday without being surprised because it’s become so expected, but still be “aghast and horrified”, because it is ghastly and horrifying behavior you are witnessing. I know Jeffrey Dahmer is a serial killer, so if I got to walk into his apartment after he was arrested but before the crime scene had been cleaned up, I wouldn’t be surprised if I opened his fridge to find a bunch of people steaks in there, but I would still be “aghast and horrified” at the sight of it.

  70. 70.

    janesays

    @bystander: The problem with this sort of thinking is that it condemns people who have made mistakes to permanent ostracization with no possible chance for redemption. There are probably a ton of things I would disagree with Nicolle Wallace about if we got down to brass tacks on policy matters, and while I would think much more of her if she came out and unequivocally denounced her old bosses, I’ll take the allies I can get, even if we may find ourselves on opposite sides of the fence again at some point down the road. We’re in an existential battle for the country. If the enemy of my enemy wants to help take down a tyrant, I’m not going to tell them to fuck off because of their past misdeeds.

    Better to have a few well-known people who had such strong ties to the GOP coming out and denouncing Trump and Trumpism every single day than to have those people falling in line doing the mad king’s bidding like most of the rest of their former comrades.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    Kombiz Lavasany
    @kombiz
    ·11m
    Lol… I remember when
    @benjaminwittes
    told us that William Barr wasn’t going to dishonor his legacy on behlaf of Trump. Less deadly than his shitty Iraq war opinions

    The fancy lawyer group really need to examine their assumptions, and explain why they were so terribly wrong about….everything.

  73. 73.

    janesays

    @Kay: People have resigned and gone on to denounce the administration, but we’ve never seen the floodgates really open. Which I think a lot of people were hoping would eventually happen when this nightmare administration began.

  76. 76.

    LAO

    I haven’t been around much this past year, but this is so shocking to me, I had to comment. Unbelievable, never in 20 years of practice as a federal criminal defense attorney have I seen anything like what’s happening.  The government ’s amended sentencing memorandum is a disgrace. I’m stunned.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @janesays:

    Right. I did think it would happen. That herd action. Because if people are resigning and you’re not that says something not good about you, in comparison. That’s why I think you get the floodgates opening. There’s an implied standard and everyone who stays didn’t meet it.

  84. 84.

    gene108

    @cmorenc:

    will be to nominate Bill Barr to the next vacancy on the US Supreme Court if Ruth B. Ginsburg can’t hold out four more years.

    Barr’s too old.

    Republicans nominate their justices young, like in their 40’s or early 50’s.

  85. 85.

    E.

    @LAO: I guess it’s hitting close to home. I’ve been shocked and disgusted and demoralized by so much of what has happened, perhaps most of all by the immigration kidnappings, but for some reason this has got me really feeling frightened about the future. I was never a prosecutor and mostly practiced plaintiff’s side civil law but . . .. Shit doesn’t work this way in a functioning democracy. At all.

  86. 86.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: In hindsight, Dems should have set up our own version of ‘wingnut welfare’, only instead of paying people to go on TV shows and lie about the GOP agenda like trumpublican ‘welfare’ recipients do, we’d be paying honest civil servants to resign from the maladministration, come forward and speak publicly about the corruption they witnessed, and then transition into a civilian career until a Dem administration takes over and they can get back to working at their agency again.

    (so, mostly just transition expenses! ;)

     

    Dem billionaires, yoo hoo, I’ve got something you can throw a couple hundred mil at…Steyer, are you listening?

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @Mandalay:

    Is anyone here still regularly “aghast and horrified” by things that Trump does?

    I am only surprised by some conservatives who previously appeared to be honestly religious or supposedly sincere about conservative “values” who have gone tribal, and either applaud what Trump is doing, or are simply silent.

    For example, they would dismiss Trump’s rhetoric as simply being jokes, misstatements, or intended to anger his opponents.

    They don’t talk about rule of law anymore. Sometimes they scramble to find something that a Democrat did that was just like what Trump has done. Very had to do so they end up making shit up.  Or they very defensively dismiss challenges as being simply partisan politics.

    They have painted themselves into an ethical corner.  And are strangely happy to be there.

  88. 88.

    LAO

    @E.: I agree. Everything has upset me but, because I understand how the federal criminal system works, this truly frightens me. I’m despondent.

     

    eta: Only main DOJ can authorize a non-guideline sentencing recommendation which means Barr approved the second sentencing memorandum.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Bostondreams:

    LTC Vindeman

    He just kills me because he fled one regime only to somehow land in another. And unlike a lot of these sad sacks and whiners who are moping around too cowardly to do anything he’s like “I’m fine! Doing great!”

    He’s not fine. We must help him.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    @gene108: let’s be honest, until there’s an amendment that changes SC appointees’ terms from ‘life’ to ’18 years’ or whatever, we ALL like judges in their 40s.

    I am really, really hoping the next Dem president has the guts to pack the SC and any federal court where trumpov put in these clowns who were rated unfavorably, had never tried a single case, etc.  Or if a court can’t be ‘packed’, then add additional federal court districts, etc.  Anything to dilute the effect of these Federalist Society know-nothings.

  92. 92.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @The Moar You Know:

    And Trump will pardon him the day after.

    Andrew Laufer says that he believes that pardon would be overturned by a judge if so pursued later on down the road by a new justice department. Which I had no idea was possible.

    Blatant abuse of power here. Judge ABJ can still ignore this ridiculous suggestion. As long as Stone’s sentence isn’t a material deviation from the guidelines, no appeal will be successful. As for a pardon, we’ll see. My belief still stands that a pardon of Stone, as opposed 1/ to Manafort, would be unlawful and negated by the Court. X

    https://twitter.com/lauferlaw/status/1227351700022996992?s=20

  94. 94.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: Fiona Hill, Vindman, Marie Yovanovitch are all immigrants. Coincidence? I think not. The Orange King has been shitting on us since came down that stupid escalator.

    ETA: Most of us became Americans because we love  America,  and the ideals it represents.

  96. 96.

    Mandalay

    @janesays:  Fair enough, though I’d only trust Wallace, and her on screen persona as far as I can throw them, given her many past lives.

    But LAO in post #76 seems to be on the same wavelength as you. Since IANAL perhaps I don’t fully appreciate the awfulness of what happened today.

  100. 100.

    sdhays

    @Jeffro: First thing they need to do if we get the Senate back is to bring in DC as a state (and Puerto Rico too, if they’ll have us). It’s not on the “Right Thing To Do”, it also starts to correct the historical gerrymandering of the Senate that the Republicans did in the late 1800’s.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @E.:

    I was never a prosecutor and mostly practiced plaintiff’s side civil law but . . .. Shit doesn’t work this way in a functioning democracy. At all.

    I don’t know squat about the law. I don’t even play an attorney in the courts of social media.

    But I pay attention when people like you say what you said.

    It is important to hear.  Thanks.

  102. 102.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Baud: I know it’s unlikely, however I was surprised there was any recourse in the courts for a Presidential pardon.

  104. 104.

    OGLiberal

    @Brachiator: I know smart people who love – fucking love – this guy.  They think he is the man they’ve been waiting for.  They are smart and believe almost every conspiracy theory out there and their teen kids love Trump as well.  The only thing they’ll admit to is that he’s “brash”.

    These are not stupid, uninformed people.  They are over-informed…with bullshit.  Fucking chamber of commerce small business types.  And fucking white.  It’s all because of the secular humanists, the “globalists” and lazy brown people.

    They are not reachable so any Dem candidate still trying to get their vote should stop fucking trying.

    Sadly, most of them are nice people…to us – but that’s probably because we are upper middle class white folks, not some kind of lazy, godless takers.  (well, the godless part  does apply to me – but not my Catholic wife/kids)

  105. 105.

    sdhays

    @Ella in New Mexico: Is there such a thing? I have always been given to understand that the Presidential Pardon is as absolute as it is stupidly broad (I still can’t accept that a blanket pardon like Ford gave Nixon is an actual thing – you should need to be charged to receive a pardon!).

  106. 106.

    tokyokie

    I hope that a new Democratic president and his team will target Barr’s DOJ apparatchiks as accessories after the fact.

  109. 109.

    Mandalay

    @gene108:

    Barr’s too old.

    Not only that, but Barr is way too useful in his current position for Trump to move him anywhere else.

    Most of Trump’s appointments have disappointed him as well as the rest of us. But Barr (possibly along with Sarah Sanders?) has surely been Trump’s greatest choice from his perspective.

  110. 110.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Marcopolo:

    I’ll be calling my 2 D senators now to remind them that they sanctioned this lawlessness by voting to acquit Trump without even giving him a full trial with witnesses & documents.

    I hope you mean your 2 R senators.

     

    ETA: I don’t know what state you live in, of course, so perhaps you were being snarky and it went right past me.

     

    And now I see others noted it and you have corrected the record :-)

  111. 111.

    Juju

    @Kent: you forgot to mention that ambulatory cadaver Wilbur Ross. I’d make sure to have his picture in every ad in which he is mentioned.

  112. 112.

    LAO

    @Cheryl Rofer: In light of all the terrible things that the Trump administration has done or sanctioned, I don’t want to sound like Chicken Little here, BUT the sky is falling. This is the end of any institutional safeguards.

  113. 113.

    gene108

    @Jeffro:

    SCOTUS maybe tough. But in  my imagination there’s a case for the lower Federal courts, due to the backlog of the previous decade.

    Wait times for cases being heard increased.

    Makes sense to increase Federal judges to help move cases along more quickly.

    I’m not sure, if I am crazy thinking this, because no one else seems to talk about it.

    There was a serious issue with backlogs, in the recent past. I don’t see why a Democratic President shouldn’t address this.

  114. 114.

    Jamie

    @OGLiberal: They are smart and believe almost every conspiracy theory out there

    I’ve got a handful of friends and family members in a similar bucket. The problem is that their information ecosystems are almost unbelievably toxic, and they have inoculated themselves against real news by considering the entire media apparatus that isn’t Alex Jones or some random dude in his basement to be hopelessly corrupt and biased. It’s insane.

  116. 116.

    sgrAstar

    @LAO: hey, LAO. We need you to help us navigate the developing cat 10 typhoon. I’ve. always enjoyed your insights.

  120. 120.

    chris

    Former US Attorney:

    basically can't overmphasize the impact of the resignations of Kravis and Zelinsky. this is the worst crisis for DOJ easily since Mitchell if not before.— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) February 11, 2020

  121. 121.

    gene108

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    It’s reminding me of a Saturday Night in October 1973.

    Didn’t the AG, Assist. AG, and on down the line, until you got to Robert Bork, resign instead of carrying out Nixon’s orders?

    Seems like this is worse.

    Instead of resigning, senior DOJ officials are rushing to do Trump’s bidding.

  122. 122.

    LAO

    This made me laugh (which morphed into crying )

    Oh hai AUSAs on all my cases. I sure hope you like that Stone amended memorandum. Because you're going to be seeing it cited a whole lot in my papers.— PonySoldierHat (@Popehat) February 11, 2020

  123. 123.

    gene108

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    The number of justices on SCOTUS is set by statute.

    I know.

    I just think, because the SCOTUS picks what cases they want to hear, and thus can dictate their own workload, they aren’t in the same bind lower courts get in, when cases keep piling up.

  124. 124.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @gene108: This is also pressure from the White House, but in this case the line prosecutors are resigning.   In 1973, Nixon ordered the firing of Special Prosecutor Cox, the AG and Deputy AG resigned and SG Bork did the dirty deed.  It was the beginning of the end of Nixon.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    It was the beginning of the end of Nixon

    This is the end of the beginning of a blatant and openly corrupt Trump administration. His minions and the GOP Congress is happily falling in line.

  126. 126.

    cckids

    @LAO:

     

    In light of all the terrible things that the Trump administration has done or sanctioned, I don’t want to sound like Chicken Little here, BUT the sky is falling. This is the end of any institutional safeguards.

    This. Back in December (so so long ago), Rachel Maddow, in an interview with the Pod Save America guys, said that we weren’t in a constitutional crisis until we knew for sure that the DOJ was corrupted.
    Now we know, beyond any doubt. And that’s exactly where we are. It’s damn terrifying in its implications.

  127. 127.

    debbie

    I hope there’s a list somewhere of the people of good conscience who have quit this administration. They will need to be rehired as soon as this one’s ejected from the White House.

  131. 131.

    janesays

    @Kay: The lack of floodgates opening is 100% why his impeachment was never going to end in anything other than acquittal.

  132. 132.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @LAO:

    I’m not sure you and I have even had an interaction on BJ, but I remember you and have missed you. How is your little dog?

     

    ETA: Sorry, that last sentence sounds awfully Wicked-Witch-of-the-West. Not meant that way at all, I assure you!

  134. 134.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott:

    All four prosecutors in Roger Stone’s case have asked to withdraw, raising questions about politicization at Justice Dept.

    Can anyone at the Washington Post be that naive?  it’s raising questions????

  135. 135.

    JPL

    Kelly Loeffler has more ads on GA local stations then Bloomberg.   She wants to tell me that it’s worse in Washington than we think.   I very loudly said EFG EFG  well not that but words in memory of EFG and now have to go find my dog.

  136. 136.

    Chris Johnson

    @Jeffro:

    But anyway, back to your question: yes, some part of me is still shocked, every time.  With the biggest shock of all that an entire political party could devolve into this, and for him…

    But it’s not. It’s not for him. He’s a puppet, was from the start.

    That entire political party are scared shitless of the Russian mob. They think they can be literally killed, one by one. They could be right, but I don’t consider that an excuse for their bootlicking. We’re at war, dammit, just in a new way.

  139. 139.

    burnspbesq

    @Jamie:

    How hard are y’all willing to work for that miracle? We have plenty of good Dems in the primary looking to go after Cornyn.

  141. 141.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kay: It breaks my heart that we bailed on this good, decent, trusting man.

    What can we do to help him? You’re the ideas lady.

  143. 143.

    janesays

    @Mandalay: Just to reiterate, literally nothing the administration does at this point can surprise me. There is no bowel of hell too deep for them to sink to that would make me exclaim, “Oh my God, I can’t believe they actually did that!”

    But the shit they’re doing is still horrifying, even if I’ve mentally prepared myself to be horrified with an extremely depressing frequency.

  147. 147.

    Jinchi

    @Kay:  For a long time with Trump, I thought people would resign.

    The weird thing is the ones who have resigned, yet still live in fear of Trump. Jeff Flake is an obvious example, hounded out of his Senate seat by a threat of Trump campaigning against him, he had about a year between the time he announced that he wasn’t running for re-election and the time he left office. Yet he was never willing to do much more than scold Trump on the op-ed pages. He rubber stamped pretty much all of Trump’s nominees and legislation right up until the day he left office. Senator Corker is another who quit because he drew the wrath of Trump, and never did anything to oppose him.

    Then you have people like Jeff Sessions, still desperate to win Trump’s favor after being fired for not prosecuting his enemies and now worried that Trump will favor a Republican rival in his bid to return to the Senate.

  148. 148.

    Chris Johnson

    Nixon resigned.

    These are signs of weakness, just like Putin making all the Russian government resign (that was a real ‘wat?’ news item). If these people were truly powerful and invulnerable they would not have to do this. It’s signs of weakness, of desperation. Remember that. Courage.

    The reason it’s so intense this time is, Trump is insane and so totally guilty of unthinkable treason that he can’t possibly resign and wouldn’t if he could. He’s a goddamn madman and has been a Russian asset (not agent, asset) for probably decades. He worked with Epstein, Epstein was caught, Epstein was killed in prison most likely by the Russian mob to prevent him admitting to anything. And all the Republicans have probably partied with Epstein (not literally all, but word gets around) and all the Republicans now know they can be murdered even in a Federal prison cell.

    And that’s how desperate Putin is to keep all this going, because once it stops growing it all collapses in a big pile of treason. Putin can’t whack all of them without starting an open war, but evidence suggests he can take out any one who’d stick their neck out against Trump in isolation. Hope Mitt Romney has good security.

    It’s desperation, not power. It’s signs of weakness.

  149. 149.

    Jinchi

    Just noticed that the NYT currently has Klobuchar in the lead with 40% of the vote and ….. 8? … eight votes?

    It seems like they could have waited until someone hit double digits to start reporting the results.

  150. 150.

    janesays

    @Mandalay: As for Wallace, I try to give everybody one chance at redemption. I don’t think she’s had many past lives, I think she’s had one past life, as a professional shill for the Bush agenda and then as team player on the McCain campaign (though to her credit, she has said that in the end she couldn’t vote for McCain because of Sarah Palin). Anyway, obviously I think she could and should do more to express contrition for her role in the Bush years, but I’m not going to deny her praise for her unambiguous denunciation of Trump, Trumpism, and the GOP, circa 2016-present. Until she gives me reason to doubt her sincerity on her opposition to Trump, I’m going to be grateful for her allyship. I have no doubt that she still subscribes to policy beliefs with which I vehemently disagree, but that’s a battle for a different day. I appreciate her small contribution to the good fight we’re all waging right now. As for whether or not I’m willing to trust her in the future, I’ll leave it to her dumb old boss to some up my feelings on the matter…

    “Fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.”

  152. 152.

    Kathy Brensinger

    What is happening?! I knew it! I knew as soon as those s.o.b.’s the Republicans acquitted Trump it would be a field day for him. No holds barred.

  153. 153.

    Marcopolo

    @Jinchi: These are the results from Dixville Notch & Hart’s Gap (or whatever its name is) that we’re cast & counted just after midnight.  Basically meaningless, but since the media has to say something—also note I’m watching MSNBC and they are running the numbers on their chyron as well.  Dumb dumb dumb.

  154. 154.

    janesays

    @sdhays: Before they do that, they’ll have to eliminate the filibuster, because there’s no chance in hell legislation granting statehood to DC and PR could ever get the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture so the bill could be properly voted on.

  155. 155.

    jl

    Trump forced House to impeach him asap through grotesquely obvious high crimes and misdemeanors, regardless of whatever plans they had.

    Barr going to force them to impeach him, and Trump again, regardless of their plans, as well?

  156. 156.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    O/T, but I hope you were watching CNN a couple of hours ago. Your girlfriend Jennifer Granholm was on a panel to talk about the DoJ fustercluck, and she was RIGHTEOUSLY AWESOME! You would have been proud. (Also, she has an adorable new short haircut.)

  157. 157.

    Martin

    @Jinchi:

    Remember, the % reporting isn’t % of votes, it’s % of districts. That throws a LOT of people off when watching returns. 99% of MO districts reporting and the republican is in the lead, then St Louis drops ⅓ of the total votes in the race but in 1% of districts and flips the result.

  159. 159.

    janesays

    @Ella in New Mexico: Any recourse in the courts on a legal challenge to a presidential pardon would ultimately be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court for final resolution, and I think we all have a pretty good guess at how that would go down. There’s not a ton of clarity in the relevant constitutional clause on pardons (the part about “except in Cases of Impeachment”) as to what it would mean for this specific case, so it’s reasonably safe bet that Roberts would punt and rule that the pardon can’t be overturned because it’s not unambiguously unconstitutional. We all know how the other four wingnuts would rule.

  161. 161.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: I was trying to figure out why we are talking about St. Louis and MO on New Hampshire night.  I finally realized you must have meant to use to use that as an example.

  162. 162.

    sdhays

    @Chris Johnson: I think you give them way too much credit. They’re not selling out the country because they’re afraid for their lives. They’re selling out the country because they’re craven monsters who have been given the opportunity to demonstrate the fact.

  166. 166.

    sdhays

    @sdhays: Actually, I wonder if the Byrd Rule could be stretched past the breaking point and DC statehood passed through reconciliation?

  167. 167.

    janesays

    @JPL: McConnell was already on my cancer list, but not for this. In this case, McTortoise is just being a passive enabler. Barr is actively (further) corrupting the Justice Department in this situation.

  169. 169.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Martin:

    McCaskill for sure. But IIRC, Granholm wasn’t exactly holding back even when she was Governor. Wonder why she hasn’t sought other office?

  171. 171.

    janesays

    @sdhays: Oh, I’m 100% with you. Unfortunately, I have some doubts about whether Chuck Schumer (or even a sufficient number of Democratic senators) are with us on killing the filibuster. The president can lean on them heavily, but ultimately it’s going to be Chuck’s call (assuming we retake the senate) whether or not the death of the filibuster will even get a vote.

  172. 172.

    janesays

    @sdhays: No idea, but reconciliation is a one-and-done deal. You can only use it one time in a fiscal year. Better make sure whatever you use it on is the most important legislative item on your agenda.

  173. 173.

    sdhays

    @janesays: Yes, that’s a problem. They’re going to need to be pushed way past the breaking point, and waste valuable time. That’s why I then wondered if reconciliation could be used creatively. I mean, it was used for its exact opposite purpose to pass the Dump tax cuts, so it’s pretty much anything goes at this point.

  174. 174.

    janesays

    @sdhays: Eh, the tax cuts sucked, but passing them through reconciliation actually made perfect sense. Budget Reconciliation is exactly what it sounds like, so using it to get tax cuts passed – which have direct ramifications for the federal budget – makes sense. The majority of tax cut legislation passed over the last 40 years (under both Republican and Democratic administrations) has been done through reconciliation.

    Trying to use it to make DC a state would actually be a lot taller order. Congress used it in 2010 to make tweaks to the ACA (though notably, the ACA itself was passed without using reconciliation), but they could do it because it had direct implications for the federal budget.

  175. 175.

    sdhays

    @janesays: As I recall, it all depends on what rules get written in the instructions that get passed out of the Budget Committee. There was talk about all kinds of shenanigans that the Republicans could have pulled during the ACA repeal effort, but they hadn’t written the instructions expansively enough.

  176. 176.

    sdhays

    @janesays: It’s supposed to improve the budget or remain neutral. The tax cuts didn’t. They used handwaving and lies to ignore that stipulation.

    Anyway, the very existence of reconciliation is simply a manifestation of how broken Congress is. They should just dump the filibuster and be done with it. But I doubt Joe Manchin will agree.

  178. 178.

    janesays

    @sdhays: The ACA repeal effort in the Senate was advanced using budget reconciliation rules, but it still failed because it couldn’t even get the 50 votes it needed to pass (Collins, Murkowski, and McCain’s votes left them just shy with 49 votes). That’s how awful that bill was – it was so unpopular that they still couldn’t get it passed even when they wrote it in a way to avoid the filibuster being a factor.

  180. 180.

    sdhays

    @janesays: Ok, but I’m not totally wrong:

    Under the Congressional Budget Act, amendments that worsen the deficit relative to the underlying bill are not allowed on the House floor unless the rule for the bill waives the point of order.

    Anyway, you can easily make the argument that DC statehood would affect spending and revenues. It’s a matter of finding an excuse everyone can live with, if there’s a will.

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @The Moar You Know:

    No one likes a despot. Especially a moronic, demented one. Going from one to another can’t be a walk in the park but going from a semi working democracy to whatever the hell it is that you call this bullshit is another story altogether. Others have thought that they were dictators but I can’t recall that any of them actually acted like this piece of shit.

  182. 182.

    Ruckus

    @janesays:

    As a cancer survivor I’m loth to wish it on anyone.

    But as with anything else in life there are exceptions. Dictatorial governments and the people at the head of them are working my last tiny, infinitesimally small and immaterial nerve. IOW, something fast, something not found until it’s too late, like pancreatic cancer. Stage 4. Or Mr Creosote disease, where he literally blows up by eating just that one last bite.

  185. 185.

    J R in WV

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    The number of justices on SCOTUS is set by statute.

    And has been changed from time to time… so no reason a strong Democratic legislative body and President cannot change it to repair all the damage done by the fascists currently in office.

    If the legislative body is strongly enough Democratic, we could impeach the fascist members of the courts, and revoke their pensions. Frankly anyone who voted for Citizens United is too stupid or corrupt to hold a seat on the bench at any level. Money is not speech!

  186. 186.

    Ruckus

    @Just Chuck:

    They don’t like him, they just follow him because they are chicken shit lowlifes who mostly couldn’t live without sucking up to someone. They aren’t independent thinkers, they aren’t leaders, they are followers. Which means they will follow anyone who scares them, threatens them, or even actually leads them. In this case it’s scares them. They don’t like him or respect him, they follow him. It might be because they now have a chance to be the dicks they’ve always wanted to be, if only they follow him completely. Or that this is their chance to actually be something, not anything in any way good, but something

    I could name names of the most obvious followers, like Lindsey G. But this is what they do, they follow. When they select a leader he doesn’t have to be an actual leader, they are obedient so a named leader, like president will do.

  187. 187.

    J R in WV

    @gene108:

    I just think, because the SCOTUS picks what cases they want to hear, and thus can dictate their own workload, they aren’t in the same bind lower courts get in, when cases keep piling up.

    I don’t think case load has anything to do with what we are talking about here. We’re talking about repairing the judiciary so completely damaged by Russian-controlled fascists . What does that have to do with case load, for dog’s sake?

  188. 188.

    eddie blake

    @J R in WV:

    umm.. in case you missed it, the size of the supreme court was changed VERY recently from nine judges to eight and back to nine again…

    no law was involved.

  189. 189.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    No one likes a despot.

    To the contrary, there are people who love despots, especially the ones who promise to restore glory, old values, etc. all that bullshit.

    The ancient Greeks, one of the inventors of democracy, also invented tyrants, and foolishly threw away their democracy a few times.

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