Over the past 24 hours, President Donald Trump has been gleefully piling on the aftermath of the Justice Department’s astonishing reversal of federal prosecutors’ recommended prison sentence of Roger Stone.
“Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning, claiming without evidence that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation was “improperly brought and tainted” and that Mueller “lied to Congress.”
That tweet seemed to confirm an NBC News report that Attorney General Bill Barr was behind the move.
The President had launched attacks against the judge in Stone’s case, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the night before.
“Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure?” Trump wrote. “How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!”
Trump also bashed the prosecutors who withdrew from Stone’s case in wake of the DOJ’s decision to water down their recommended prison sentence of seven to nine years for obstruction and witness tampering.
“Who are the four prosecutors (Mueller people?) who cut and ran after being exposed for recommending a ridiculous 9 year prison sentence to a man that got caught up in an investigation that was illegal, the Mueller Scam, and shouldn’t ever even have started?” the President tweeted. “13 Angry Democrats?”
Trump also opened the door for potential pardons of Stone and Michael Flynn, writing “Prosecutorial Misconduct?” in response to a tweet suggesting such pardons on Tuesday night.
He went on to accuse the four lawyers of being “rogue prosecutors” on Wednesday morning.
The Justice Department made the shocking decision to recommend a lighter sentence for Stone on Tuesday afternoon after Trump had complained about Stone’s “horrible and very unfair situation” and that he “cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”
