The Patriot Post® · Roger Stone, 'Justice,' and the Deep State

Our nation has a two-tiered justice system.

Roger Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstructing the House’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia. Federal prosecutors initially recommended that he serve seven to nine years. Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper lied¹ to Congress. So did² former CIA Director John Brennan. Neither man was even indicted, much less prosecuted.

The media are in a frenzy over the fact that the Justice Department submitted a revised³ filing stating that the prosecutors’ recommended sentence “could be considered excessive and unwarranted,” even though it’s a recommendation U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, can completely ignore. They are equally incensed that President Donald Trump tweeted⁴ about the unfairness of the sentence, and they and Democrat politicians insisted Barr should “resign or face impeachment” as a result — even though the decision⁵ to change the sentencing recommendation was made before⁶ the tweet, and even though the president has the power to pardon⁷ Stone should he so desire.

Unless he does, Stone is going to jail. By contrast, Brennan works for MSNBC. Clapper works for CNN, which also hired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, despite the fact that the Office of the Inspector General report⁸ stated that he repeatedly leaked information to the press and lied about it. Brennan called Trump a traitor and pushed the now-debunked Russia-collusion hoax for more than two years. Following Trump’s Helsinki meeting with Vladimir Putin, Clapper also insisted⁹ Russia must have something on Trump.

Despite being documented liars, all three remain employed by their respective networks. Networks that often insist their coverage is unbiased.

In the American justice system, a defendant facing a trial by jury is entitled to the presumption of innocence — and adjudication by an impartial jury. Last Wednesday, former Memphis City Schools Board President Tomeka Hart revealed¹⁰ she was the foreperson of Stone’s jury. She did so during an effort to support the four DOJ prosecutors, two of whom worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation, who resigned¹¹ to protest the revised sentencing recommendation.

Hart also revealed she was a left-wing Trump hater¹² with a string of social-media posts¹³ demonstrating exactly that. She also tweeted¹⁴ specifically about Stone before voting to convict him, mocking those who thought Stone’s arrest constituted a display of excessive force.

That arrest? Despite no charges of violence, the FBI sent¹⁵ 29 heavily armed agents dressed in riot gear, 17 armored vehicles, a K-9 unit, a helicopter, and two amphibious units stationed on the canal behind Stone’s home to conduct their pre-dawn raid. Former federal prosecutor Kenneth White surmised¹⁶ the show of force indicated Mueller’s office might have thought “there was a danger he would destroy evidence” — despite Stone himself saying¹⁷ five months earlier that he expected to be charged by Mueller, giving him ample time to destroy any evidence. Moreover, the FBI sealed off the street where CNN was “coincidentally” there to film the whole spectacle. And the FBI has denied a FOIA request for all emails between the agency and CNN in the days prior to the raid.

How did Hart pass muster with Judge Jackson? Fox News offers¹⁸ some perspective: “Meanwhile, it emerged that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had denied a defense request to strike a potential juror who was an 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.”

Stone and his legal team also countenanced three jurors with ties¹⁵ to the FBI, three others tied to the DOJ, and two tied to the CIA.

Even dedicated Never-Trumper Judge Andrew Napolitano knows¹⁹ the score. “It is the duty of the judge to ensure that both the government and defendant get a fair trial,” he explained. “And if the judge discovers afterward that there was a built-in inherent bias on the part of a member of a jury against the defendant, that is an automatic trigger for a new trial.”

Last Wednesday, a ruling by Jackson was unsealed, rejecting²⁰ Stone’s request for a new trial based on what his defense team characterized as allegations of “bias” regarding one of the jurors who remained unnamed. Yet those allegations asserted that the unnamed juror is employed at a division of the IRS — meaning it was not Hart to whom the defense team was referring.

How did Hart get on the jury in the first place? According to a court transcript²¹ obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, Hart stated she was generally aware of the Russia investigation, but that she didn’t “pay that close attention” to it. She also insisted Stone’s affiliation with the president would “absolutely not” color her views of the defendant.

That transcript is dated November 5, 2019. In a tweet²² dated August 19, 2017, Hart referred to Trump as the “#KlanPresident.” Several other tweets¹⁴ that predate her jury-selection testimony also indicate an intense dislike of the president, and a March 24, 2019, tweet²³ indicated she was far more than “generally aware” of the Russian investigation.

Remarkably, in addition to her social-media posts, Hart ran for Congress²⁴ as a Democrat in 2012.

Will Judge Jackson order a new trial based on these revelations? Stone wants to find out. On Friday, he demanded a retrial based on these revelations. The DOJ has until tomorrow to respond.

Yet one suspects a judge who barred Stone’s attorneys from asking questions about misconduct committed by Mueller’s team, the DOJ, and the FBI, and prevented forensic witnesses from challenging the FBI’s assertion that Russians hacked the DNC and provided that data to WikiLeaks — despite the reality that everything Stone lied about relates to this action — will not be persuaded to pursue genuine justice.

Meanwhile, it gets worse. In an interview²⁵ with ABC News released last Thursday, Attorney General Bill Barr insisted that while Trump “has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case,” he should stop tweeting about the DOJ because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”

One day later, law-abiding Americans might be forgiven for wondering what Barr’s job entails: The DOJ announced it will decline²⁶ to prosecute McCabe. Thus, lying²⁷ to federal officials about his involvement in leaking — which is a felony²⁸ — will be swept under the proverbial rug.

Roger Stone? “A sentence of nine years is unreasonable,” stated²⁹ former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy with regard to the DOJ’s initial sentencing recommendation. Yet McCarthy also revealed just how far those who turned the American justice system into a sewer of rank partisanship are prepared to go. “The Justice Department could have brought this whole case as one count of obstruction and instead brought seven felonies.”

And Judge Amy Berman Jackson allowed a rank partisan to act as the jury foreperson.

For the last three years, Americans were inundated with lies about Russian collusion and what a serious threat it was to our republic. Now the public knows otherwise: The most serious threat³⁰ to our republic is the people who are supposed to safeguard it.