Washington, DC — The media and their Democratic friends have been apoplectic ever since President Trump commuted Roger Stone’s conviction this past Friday. It was just days before the 67-year-old was to report to federal prison and begin his 40-month sentence for lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstructing the House investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she would support a bill that would limit a president’s pardoning abilities. Stone had been sentenced to three years in prison for witness tampering and lying to Congress. He was also arrested in an infamous early morning bust with multiple armed police raiding the 67-year-old’s home as CNN filmed.
Shortly after commuting Stone’s sentence, the White House released a statement calling the former adviser “a victim of the Russia Hoax.”
The White House statement said:
“The collusion delusion spawned endless and farcical investigations, conducted at great taxpayer expense, looking for evidence that did not exist. As it became clear that these witch hunts would never bear fruit, the Special Counsel’s Office resorted to process-based charges leveled at high-profile people in an attempt to manufacture the false impression of criminality lurking below the surface. These charges were the product of recklessness borne of frustration and malice.”
Pelosi and Democrats, however, want to make sure presidents can’t pardon allies, calling Trump’s actions “an act of staggering corruption.”
“Congress will take action to prevent this type of brazen wrongdoing. Legislation is needed to ensure that no president can pardon or commute the sentence of an individual who is engaged in a cover-up campaign to shield that President from criminal prosecution,” Pelosi said, as reported by The Times-Union.
The Times-Union also noted that such a bill would never become law with a Republican-controlled Senate and White House. Additionally, the bill would “likely face legal challenges were it to become law.” The United States Constitution, specifically Article II, section 2, states the President of the United States has every right to pardon or commute sentences. President Trump had every right to pardon Stone, even if some don’t like it.
Many in the media and Congress have no issues with Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution but believe that the co-equal branch of government should be limited for this particular President. Brett L. Tolman and Arthur Rizer are two former prosecutors who co-wrote an op-ed for Fox News saying Stone was a “relative bit player” sentenced to justify Robert Muller’s special counsel investigation.
“The Stone prosecution is just the latest example of a well-documented phenomena: the way special prosecutors, desperate to justify their commissions, end up charging marginal players with tangential crimes — often related obstruction of the investigation itself,” the two wrote.
Journalist, author, and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy defended Trump’s actions and pointed out multiple pardons from Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that Democrats defended.
“President Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother for felony distribution of cocaine. And a key witness in the Whitewater scandal for which he and Hillary Clinton were under investigation. And three others convicted in independent counsel Ken Starr’s probe. And Marc Rich, in what was a straight-up political payoff. And his CIA director. And his HUD secretary. And eight people convicted in an investigation of his Agriculture Department,” McCarthy wrote.
McCarthy continued by saying, “Obama also commuted the sentence of a U.S. soldier who passed top-secret information to WikiLeaks. He pardoned his former Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman, who’d been convicted of making false statements about a leak of classified information to The New York Times.”
If you recall, the U.S. soldier is the former Bradley Manning, who now goes by “Chelsea.” President Obama granted clemency to more people than any president since Truman.
The latest Democrat to criticize the move is the current House Intelligence Committee chairman, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA). Schiff’s contentious relationship with the President whose contentious relationship with the president has been on full display out on Capitol Hill and every chance Schiff has had to appear on CNN and MSNBC. Schiff called Trump’s commutation of Stone’s sentence “offensive” and argued that the president’s allies can do whatever they want and get off “scot-free.”
Though he isn’t an ally, Adam Schiff has had a casual relationship with the truth, claiming he has seen evidence of the president colluding with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Schiff has yet to be held accountable and continues to pedal this lie that has been proven false on multiple occasions.
“I think anyone who cares about the rule of law in this country is nauseated by the fact that the president has commuted the sentence of someone who willfully lied to Congress, covered up for the president, intimidated witnesses, obstructed the investigation,” Schiff said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “It shouldn’t matter whether you’re Democrat or Republican. This should be offensive to you if you care about the rule of law.”
Bills like this have no chance of becoming law and do nothing but placate to the Leftist base. Pelosi and others still don’t understand their role as members of Congress.
In an interview with CNN, Speaker Pelosi said, “There ought to be a law, and I’m recommending that we pass a law that presidents cannot issue a pardon if the crime that the person is in jail for is one that is caused by protecting the president, which this was.”
