No major surprise here, right?
Trump used the powers of the office he currently occupies in order to commute the sentence of Roger Stone, who was set to serve a 40-month prison sentence.
Stone, as you may recall, had been arrested and charged for his role discovered during Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. He was charged with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and several counts of making misleading statements.
So now, Stone is a free man. Because of his political ties to a criminal president, he himself gets off scot free, even after being convicted for his own criminal conduct.
Yet more evidence that these are dark years that we are living under in this country, and that we seem to have lost our way.
Trump may have gotten Stone to avoid his prison term, and let’s face it: there is not much, legally, that can be done about that. After all, as much of a national mistake – and frankly, a national disgrace – as it may be, Trump was legally elected to be president. And those are some of the powers and privileges of being president.
Does it betray a certain level of corruption?
Yes, it surely does.
Is it an abuse of his power, as the Democrats are now alleging?
Maybe. I am not sure if that legal argument will stand or not. This administration has made a point of pushing the envelope, always seeming to claim more powers than any president has had before. Unfortunately, it seems to be a strategy that has worked for them, time and time again. Hard to imagine that will suddenly just stop now, with this case, specifically. But I guess stranger things have happened.
One thing that was pointed out today by former special prosecutor Robert Mueller rings true, however. He said of Stone:
"He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so."
That’s right. Trump may commute his sentence, and Roger Stone and his ridiculous band of supporters wearing “Free Roger Stone” t-shirts and Covid masks and claiming that he did nothing wrong does not change that. The fact that Stone is now a free man, having managed to avoid his justified prison sentence (frankly, it should have been longer and more serious) does not change the fact that Stone is a convicted felon. A criminal. And like his boss and hero, an established liar.
He and his boss will be remembered as criminals in the future, however much they play around with their powers, and however much they manage to craftily avoid having to pay any consequences for their illegal and immoral actions. Trump is the worst president in American history, and it is not his considerable legal leverage, nor his loyal to a fault base of blind and militantly stupid and arrogant supporters that will change that fact. Trump and his presidency have been nothing but an enormous failure for this country. This latest action in getting Stone released from what frankly is a soft prison sentence does nothing to change any of this.
We are living in dark times, and under the worst presidency that this country has ever seen. Whatever shortcomings other presidents may have had, and however many scandals there may have been, there simply has been nothing to compare with the pathetic new lows that Trump and his team seem to make a point of setting on a virtually daily basis. They have the bar time and again, to the point that the news of these new lows comes so frequently and relentlessly that it feels truly headspinning.
Again, though, history will record this man and his actions not in the same manner of the drunken euphoria of his enablers, his supporters, who literally never seem to criticize a damn thing that he does. History will not buy into his own justifications for his often illegal and almost exclusively immoral actions. Trump is already justly viewed as a criminal and, frankly, a joke, throughout much of the world. And his whole presidency has done irreparable harm to this country and to it’s legacy and worldwide standing. Quite possibly, it has done some permanent damage to American democracy as we know it, for that matter. Sadly, we cannot be sure that some of the obviously intentional attacks on democracy (to say nothing about civility) are not permanent. It does not make me happy to say that, but it feels to me like a more truthful, albeit blunt, assessment of what the Trump presidency has meant for this country in the long term.
Stone is free because of the damage that has been done to the justice system in this country. This did not begin with Trump, but Trump seriously advanced this deterioration. Unfortunately, he has dismantled much of the justice system through perfectly legal means. But let us remember what Mueller said, because this rings true: Stone is a convicted felon. Trump’s actions to commute his sentence did not change that, even if Trump himself, or Stone himself, or their blindly loyal supporters all will happily claim that it does.
We have never before seen a presidency like Trump’s. And let us hope that we never, ever see one anywhere near as damaging again.
Robert Mueller says of Roger Stone: "He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so" by AP, July 11, 2020:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-mueller-washington-post-op-ed-roger-stone-remains-a-convicted-felon/
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