From the
National Review, no less...
President Trump has commuted the sentence of Roger Stone. The timing, late on Friday, suggests internal embarrassment over the move, and we wish there were more.
[...]
We’re a long way from George H. W. Bush’s pardoning Cap Weinberger, the great Reagan-era defense official, who had been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Lawrence Walsh investigation.
National Review
Actually, we're not. A long way.
No one would think of letting Roger Stone anywhere near any serious responsibility, and even the Trump campaign in 2016 had the sense to keep him at arm’s length.
Not far enough.
But the indictment of Stone and subsequent trial definitively established that Stone had no inside knowledge of Russian hacking or WikiLeaks’s role in disseminating stolen DNC emails; instead, he tried to parlay media gossip and what he heard from an intermediary into a sense that he knew more than he did. Never before has an alleged spy been such a fatuous figure and ridiculous braggart.
There is no doubt, though, that Stone was guilty of perjury and a laughably ham-handed attempt at witness tampering. He was justly convicted of these charges and deserved to go to jail; in our system of justice, self-parody is no defense.
[...]
The act of clemency is made worse by the fact that Stone repeatedly argued that he was owed it for his loyalty to the president.
Apparently Trump thought so, too.
(At least Trump didn’t pardon him, which means that his convictions still stand.)
I wonder who convinced Trump not to pardon Stone. And I suspect Trump can still pardon him on his way out of office.
The early-morning SWAT team raid on Stone’s home, somehow covered by a CNN crew, was a travesty.
But Trump’s handling of the matter is indefensible. It is another indication of his perverse, highly personalized view of the criminal-justice system — and another reminder of the loathsome characters he’s surrounded himself with his entire adult life.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
