Retribution

Here is Roger Stone in July claiming with a straight face

Donald Trump and his associates wre subjected to the greatest single dirty trick in American political history. That is nothing less than an abuse of power in which the full auhority of the United States government and the extraordinary capability of our intelligence agencies were used to utilize what they knew was fraudulent evidence.....

But now when we expose these things because that is an act of treason, we're accused of being for revenge or retribution. No, my friends, what we seek is a rebalance of the scales of justice so this country can return to one standard of justice, not thet wo-tiered justice system.

We are accused of being for “revenge” or “retribution.”

No, my friends.

What we seek is a REBALANCE of the scales of justice so this country can return to ONE standard of justice—not the two-tiered justice system. pic.twitter.com/t7FyBqpuIR

— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) December 30, 2024

Scoff all you wish- and you should- but there may be no one who ever has known as much about dirty tricks in American politics than Roger Stone, once described as "the state of the art Washington sleazeball." as Chris Hayes suggested five years ago. (This is selling Stone short. He had time also to be a Trenton, NJ sleezeball.)

 

If "we" are not for revenge or retribution, Donald Trump seems not to have gotten the memo. In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in early March of 2023, he declared 

In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I add, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.

A few weeks later, at a rally in Waco, Texas, Trump reiterated his message by remarking "I am your warrior, I am your justice. For those who have been wronged and betrayed... I am your retribution."  In an interview in March of 2024, he told the conservative pop psychologist Phil McGraw "sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil, I have to be honest. You know, sometimes it can." 

Revenge or retribution, Donald Trump can make it happen, especially with the likely assistance of President Musk. 

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Probably Not Headed for Divinity School

In my last post, I argued that we could argue whether Lauren Boebert, she of the public display of pious religiosity in the Capitol rotunda, is sincere about her Christian convictions. There isn't too much doubt about the most famous Republican in the country, though:

Trump called in to ‘Pastor’s for Trump’ tonight for a National Prayer on the eve of his possible indictment. When the host asked him to name a specific prayer that he would like to request, he suddenly had technical difficulties with his phone. (Audio) pic.twitter.com/Nr7oGVjHuS

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) March 20, 2023

He could have gone with Psalm 23, "The Lord is My Shepherd" (very relatable) or The Lord's Prayer, referred to by some Catholics as the "Our Father." Alternatively, he might have said that his favorite depends upon how the Holy Spirit moves him at the moment or what he was praying for on that day. Something. 

The congresswoman is a believer- or at least pretends to be- and if she isn't, at least appears to understand the fundamentals of Christian faith. When it comes to Boebert's sincerity, your mileage may vary. But Roger Stone couldn't be this naive, could he?

Roger Stone says Trump just called him and they prayed together over the phone: “He is a man completely without fear because he puts his faith in the Lord.” pic.twitter.com/u72i89GyVG

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) March 21, 2023

Donald Trump has rarely if ever even tried to hid he contempt for Christianity.

 

Nor his ignorance of it (and asking for forgiveness is not the purpose of communion). 

Admittedly, Trump couldn't have gone down the "all of them" road. Sarah Palin went there when as a vice-presidential nominee in 2008 she was asked "what newspapers do you read?" "All of them..." It didn't go down well.  

The ex-President probably should have replied "John 3:16" or said "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son." It's not the full verse but enough that everyone would have known what he was referring to because it's the most widely-known verse in the entire Bible. Of course, it may not matter because Roger Stone is not alone among the tens of millions of Trump admirers who would still support him if he said "child molestation is my favorite felony."

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Wishing Her Well

-- President Trump, on child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

A terrible president. An even worse human being.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 22, 2020

Donald Trump is a terrible President and possibly the worst human being in the country, aside from a murderer or rapist. However, he also is smart. Approximately an hour before President Trump commuted the sentence of Roger Stone, the latter told journalist/columnist Howard Fineman

I had 29 or 30 conversations with Trump during the campaign period.He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t. They wanted me to play Judas. I refused.

Neal Katyal and Joshua Geltzer explain

Sure, Trump helped Stone by invoking his extraordinary constitutional powers to relieve Stone of the consequences of his 2019 conviction for lying to investigators, obstructing a congressional inquiry, and witness tampering. But Trump, characteristically, did as little as possible: He commuted Stone’s sentence but didn’t pardon him. That means—as Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote on Saturday—that Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.” A commutation does nothing to erase or even call into question a convicted defendant’s guilt.

Because of the prohibition of double jeopardy, Stone cannot be retried for the exact same offense. However, he can face charges for similar offenses and

A future Justice Department would be well within its rights to open a new investigation into Stone’s activities. Such an investigation wouldn’t be hard: The very facts the jury found sufficient to convict Stone suggest that he may be guilty of other criminal offenses.

This includes obstruction of justice and/or perjury, maybe aiding and abetting the email dump. Such crimes

have different elements from the ones Stone was convicted of, so they are not the same—and being forced to prove different facts to establish different elements of a crime is, in general, a key indication that prosecutors are not running into constitutional double-jeopardy concerns.

If the President had pardoned Stone for all offenses which might be related to this affair, Stone would be free-and-clear of all federal charges. But Trump didn't do so because he wanted the possibility of further criminal charges to hang over the notorious dirty trickster. 

That's how it's done in the underworld. Asked by David Letterman in 2013 about the Mafia, Trump responded "You just don’t want to owe them money. Don’t owe them money."

Better for them to owe you.  Now Stone owes Trump for pardoning him, with the implied threat of more legal trouble if he chooses to speak up.

Currently, Ghislaine Maxwell doesn't owe Trump. She has the goods on him, which was made clear when the President wished her well. It's the best of both worlds for him, with both the implied promise of a pardon or a commutation of sentence if she keeps her mouth shut- and much worse if she doesn't.

It's the way of La Cosa Nostra, which Donald Trump has played ball with for decades.  He has done it effectively with Roger Stone and now he's playing with Ghislaine Maxwell, who needs to makes sure she's paid up on her life insurance. She's not up against anyone stupid.

 

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"Negroes"

I didn't wake up this morning and think "I believe I'll defend Roger Stone today."

And I won't. The race of an individual does not justify dismissing him (or her) or his (or her) comments. However, that is not why Roger Stone is being criticized after, as reported by The New York Times, he

was speaking on the “The Mo’Kelly Show," a program based at a Los Angeles radio station and hosted by Morris W. O’Kelly, known as Mo’Kelly.

On the show, Mr. O’Kelly questioned the role that Mr. Stone’s relationship and proximity to the president played in the commutation of his sentence.

The host asked: “There are thousands of people treated unfairly daily, how your number just happened to come up in the lottery, I am guessing it was more than just luck, Roger, right?”

Mr. Stone, who was speaking by phone, responded by muttering: “arguing with this Negro”; the beginning of his sentence was hard to hear. It sounded as if Mr. Stone were not speaking directly into the phone, but rather to himself or someone in the room with him.

When Mr. O’Kelly asked him to repeat what he said, Mr. Stone let out a sigh, then remained silent for almost 40 seconds. Acting as if the connection had been severed, Mr. Stone vehemently denied that he used the slur.

“I did not, you’re out of your mind,” Mr. Stone told the host....

Mr. O’Kelly continued the interview after the awkward exchange.

The host was right to complain “All of my professional accolades, all my professional bona fides went out the window because as far as he was concerned, he was talking and arguing with a Negro.” Unfortunately, he added that he was 

“disappointed and dismayed that in 2020, that’s where we are.”

“It’s the diet version of the N-word, but as an African-American man, it’s something I deal with pretty frequently,” he said. “If there’s a takeaway from the conversation, it is that Roger Stone gave an unvarnished look into what is in the heart of many Americans today.”

The Times reporters wrote also "The slur that Mr. Stone used was commonly used to refer to Black Americans through part of the 1960s, but for decades it has been considered offensive."

"Offensive" may seem an unassailable description unless one is aware 

The word Negro was adopted from Spanish and Portuguese and first recorded from the mid 16th century. It remained the standard term throughout the 17th–19th centuries and was used by such prominent black American campaigners as W. E. B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington in the early 20th century. Since the Black Power movement of the 1960s, however, when the term black was favored as the term to express racial pride, Negro has dropped out of favor and now seems out of date or even offensive in both US and British English. The 2010 US Census questionnaire was criticized when it retained the racial designation Negro as an option (along with Black and African Am.). The Census Bureau defended its decision, citing the 2000 Census forms, on which more than 56,000 individuals handwrote “Negro” (even though it was already on the form). Apparently, Negro continues to be the identity strongly preferred by some Americans..

In the 1950s and 1960s, relatively tolerant Americans would refer to black people as "Negroes" rather than as "colored people," which bears an intriguing similarity to today's "people of color."  Understood historically, the Times' "Roger Stone Uses Racial Slur on Radio" is narrow-minded.

It's understandable that Mr. O'Kelly would want to deflect attention from one of his controversial interview subjects, who apparently made a highly questionable remark. He may want to interview Stone again someday.

However, Roger Stone doesn't speak for me and possibly not for "many Americans today."  He didn't speak for me in the 1960s when  he employed dirty tricks for Richard Nixon, he didn't speak for me when he lied about colluding with Wikileaks to rig a presidential election, and he doesn't speak for me today when he is dismissive of his interviewers.

Tolerant whites invoked "Negroes" instead of "colored people" long before "people of color" became the culturally sophisticated term. Then, not all white people were alike, and neither are we all alike now. That's something both The New York Times and Morris O'Kelly would do well to understand.

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(False) Bravado

Roger Stone posted a picture of Amy Berman in which the Judge's head appeared in front of what appeared to be the crosshairs of a rifle scope, accompanying a post in which he

called special counsel Robert Mueller a “Deep State hitman,” who guaranteed through legal trickery that Stone’s upcoming “show trial” would be before Jackson. He then noted that Jackson was appointed by former President Obama, had dismissed the Benghazi charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and incarcerated former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort prior to his conviction.

Even women can play the tough guy. The Washington Post notes

A federal judge on Thursday ordered that longtime Republican operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone may not speak publicly about the investigation or case against him.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington said it would be “foolhardy” to wait for Stone to transgress again in the wake of an Instagram post that appeared to show her photo near crosshairs. The post suggested both she and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, whose office brought the case against Stone, were biased.

“I’m not giving you another chance,” Jackson told Stone. “I have serious doubts whether you’ve learned any lesson at all.”

If he violates the order in any way, Jackson warned, she will order him to jail.

Stone accused the Judge of being biased and presiding over a show trial, also convincing Jackson that he was

“fanning the flames” and “chose to use his public platform . . . to incite others who may be less constrained.” Alluding to the charges against a Coast Guard lieutenant accused of plotting a terrorist attack, she said Stone’s post could have sparked violence: “You don’t have to read the paper beyond today to know that that’s a possibility.”

He has surely learned a lesson, now realizing that he can do all that and receive a stern lecture. Mimi Rocah, formerly a US Attorney with the now-famous SDNY and currently an NBC and MSNBC legal analyst, reflects the common, conventional wisdom now making the rounds:

Could Judge Jackson have detained Stone on this conduct & record? Yes, but she showed he’s a liar, imposed conditions that will feel like hell to him, & there’s zero chance he abides by them which will make it an easy decision to detain him & he doesn’t get to play the martyr. https://t.co/A0TAjearcg

— Mimi Rocah (@Mimirocah1) February 21, 2019

This is a rather benign view of hell.  According to The New York Times, Jackson's

new order imposes the same restrictions on him that she has placed on lawyers in the case.

“From this moment on, the defendant may not speak publicly about this case — period. No statements about the case on TV, radio, print reporters or internet. No posts on social media,” Judge Jackson said. She said her order also applied to surrogates who might speak on Mr. Stone’s behalf.

She said Mr. Stone could continue to seek donations to his legal defense fund, but could note only that he had pleaded not guilty — without commenting on the judge, the prosecutors, the witnesses or anyone involved in the case.

Rocah should be familiar with the tough guy act many judges put on, and should understand that not speaking publicly about a criminal case is common among criminal defendants, rarely referred to as "hell."  Nor is it a hardship to be able to pull down the tidy sum of $47,000 as a communications consultant, as had Stone.

Admittedly most defendants are not encumbered with the same notoriety nor advantaged with friends in high places (in this instance, the President) as is Stone.  Nonetheless, remaining silent about a criminal case is routine, and even typically recommended by the defense attorney.

Investigative journalist and author David Cay Johnston, though mistakenly believing race and religion play a role, understands the role of privilege and wealth in this case more than do the vast majority of legal analysts and broadcast journalists. He tweets

So @StoneColdRoger menaces the federal judge in his criminal case, but she lets him remain free before trial. This is white skin privilege bias on full display. An AfricanAmerican, Latino, or Muslim (especially if not rich like Roger) would be in jail.

— David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) February 22, 2019

Were Johnston to eliminate "especially," he'd have it nailed. The talking heads on cable television (and, sadly, probably on network news and in print journalism) need a primer in recognizing judicial grandstanding.

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Raid

There is overwhelming evidence of collusion, a witch hunt which has so far corralled eight individuals who have been found guilty (and many more indicted), and a grand jury which doesn't meet on Thursdays but which did so on January 24, suggesting an arrest on Friday, January 25. Even aside from that, it was ludicrous (though hardly unpredictable) when President Trump tweeted

Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Who alerted CNN to be there?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2019

Lawyer and MSNBC contributor Barbara McQuade notes "this is how it is done when the FBI executes arrest and search warrants to prevent  destruction of evidence."  In an op-ed in The New York Times, Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute apparently agrees. (Although the Cato Institute is unworthy of being quoted favorably on taxation, business and financial regulation, and the like, this piece is less opinion than analysis and pertains to a somewhat civil liberties issue.) He explains

Mr. Stone’s early-morning arrest at his Florida home unsurprisingly dominated coverage, but reports also noted that federal agents were “seen carting hard drives and other evidence from Mr. Stone’s apartment in Harlem, and his recording studio in South Florida was also raided.” The F.B.I., in other words, was executing search warrants, not just arrest warrants. Even the timing and manner of Mr. Stone’s arrest — at the absolute earliest moment allowed under federal rules of criminal procedure without persuading a judge to authorize an exceptional nighttime raid — suggests a concern with preventing destruction of evidence: Otherwise it would make little sense to send a dozen agents to arrest a man in his 60s before sunrise.

The President is a late arrival to civil libertarianism. On July 28, 2017 in Brentwood on Long Island's Suffolk County

President Trump took a break from discussing gang violence and illegal immigration to give the law enforcement officers gathered for his remarks some advice on how to treat suspects.

“When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over?” Trump said, miming the physical motion of an officer shielding a suspect’s head to keep it from bumping against the squad car.

“Like, don’t hit their head, and they just killed somebody — don’t hit their head,” Trump continued. “I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”

The hypocrisy would be stunning were it not Donald Trump, for whom hypocrisy is the norm (also lying, false bravado, narcissism, business failure, corruption, and- oh, never mind).

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