Trump commuted Stone's sentence. The despicable old ratfucker won't go to prison.
Anyone else would do serious time for threatening a witness. And that's just one of the charges: Roger Stone was convicted of seven felonies. It is important to understand that he did not just lie to Congress; he lied to help Donald Trump.
In response to a Natasha Bertrand tweet, a reader named Mike points to the single most important fact underlying this case.
He hasn't "maintained his innocence" he's said explicitly that won't give testimony on the CRIMES he KNOWS Donald Trump committed.Stone himself pretty clearly admitted that he has dirt on Trump. In fact, he threatened to blab unless Trump came to his rescue. Here's a tweet from earlier today:
Not the same thing.
At all.
Just had a long talk with #RogerStone. He says he doesn’t want a pardon (which implies guilt) but a commutation, and says he thinks #Trump will give it to him. “He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”— howardfineman (@howardfineman) July 10, 2020
I would call this a veiled threat, but where's the veil? Obviously Stone knows about crimes and immoral acts committed by Trump. If Trump were innocent, he would have had nothing to fear.
Moreover, the evidence clearly indicates that someone friendly to Stone is guilty of jury tampering.
All of Stone’s jurors later wrote to the court they wanted their privacy and feared for their safety. Some got mysterious phone calls, postcards from strangershttps://t.co/7TsYTcsroo— Katelyn Polantz (@kpolantz) July 10, 2020
The commutation is illegal and should be challenged. The law states that commutation should not occur until after the prisoner has begun to serve, and after the prisoner has exhausted all legal challenges.
The word "generally" offers some leeway here, although Poulsen adds: "fwiw, “generally” expands to “except upon a showing of exceptional circumstances” in the policy." I fail to see any exceptional circumstances, beyond that fact that the president and Stone are cronies.Hard to see how Roger Stone could possibly clear Justice Department policy on clemency applications with his case on appeal and his sentence not yet begun.— kpoulsen (@kpoulsen) July 10, 2020
j/k just wanted to hear what that sounded like pic.twitter.com/0Pi8KzBjAy
All of the above tweets are variations on a single theme: Friends of Trump are beyond justice. The rules don't apply to them.
This is not democracy.
UPDATE: Seth Abramson follows the Stone corruption trail into territory new to me. Before we proceed, understand this: Abramson has a book to sell. I have not read this book and I cannot verify his allegations. Still, he tells a startling story, one which links together the Stone and Flynn cases.
I have taken the liberty of translating his tweets into conventional prose, mildly edited, with a few diversions excised. You are encouraged to view the original thread, which includes links to sources. The words below the asterisks are from that thread.
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MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump Commits Federal Felony and Impeachable Offense By Commuting Sentence of His Court Evidence -- Confirmed Co-Conspirator in Pre-election Russian, Israeli, and Turkish Collusion; Stone Had Publicly Stated He Could Flip on Trump
The President of the United States committed a crime today in plain view. Commuting the sentence of a criminal co-conspirator isn't protected by the U.S. Constitution and isn't within the authority of a president. This is as good as a confession of criminal conduct by Trump.
Congress must initiate an investigation of this pardon immediately. I've already threaded at some length about the evidence in the Stone case that indicates Trump colluded with Russia, Israel, and Turkey with Stone's assistance before the 2016 election...
The evidence in Stone's case incriminated Trump on not just lying to federal investigators but being actively involved in pre-election Israeli and Turkish collusion in 2016. This commutation wasn't a political statement, it was Trump issuing himself a Get-Out-of-Jail card.
Some think there won't/can't be justice for the crime Trump committed today. There can be and will be if
(a) America's citizenry and its Congress educate themselves on what Trump has done,
(b) investigations and hearings are held and
(c) a Democratic administration is elected.
Some also think that the main problem we have now is a corrupt White House and a corrupt DOJ. No -- that was the permanent problem we first found out about years ago. The problem we have now is that most Americans aren't educated on why what just happened is a federal crime.
If I go on on Twitter and shout about how the search warrant apps in Stone's case confirm that Trump colluded with Israel, I sound crazy. If everyone in media reads these historic docs and everyone reports on them and every author writes about them, it's different.
So I'm not at all persuaded by or interested in those who say "nothing will happen"—because US media and Americans generally haven't taken the step that precedes "something happening," which is knowing all about the emails Stone sent during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Stone indicated to the Israelis in 2016 that Trump wanted Turkish cyberintelligence to be delivered to Trump's campaign via the Israelis that would act as an "October Surprise" to destroy Clinton's campaign. That was an illegal conspiracy to solicit foreign election assistance.
Stone said that the "Lieutenant General" was involved in these plans as well as Trump. And who is Trump looking to pardon next? Lieutenant General Michael Flynn—who had secret contacts he lied to the feds about with {checks notes} Israel and Turkey prior to the 2016 election.
The story of these events was told by me (in Proof of Collusion, Proof of Conspiracy, and now Proof of Corruption, as well as here on the feed) and by many others on social media who have researched these topics and documents. The media decided it wasn't sexy enough to cover.
If America had demanded this story be central to our discourse the same way America demanded John Bolton's book be central to the discourse -- making it #1 in America and the only thing media could cover for two weeks -- Trump might have felt he couldn't pardon Stone. But there was silence.
Think of it: Before today, did you read anywhere that Trump was about to commute or pardon a man who'd been confirmed to be a criminal co-conspirator of his in recently released court docs? No -- media covered this as Trump just "doing a solid" for a pal, not committing a crime.
Nor did media prepare America for the fact -- and it is a fact -- that Trump commuting or pardoning Stone would be proof of consciousness of guilt. Anyone who has written a book chapter on Stone could have told you that Stone would threaten to flip without a pardon -- and Stone did.
I've said this over and over: Media drives much of what happens in D.C. and at the polls -- and if media isn't discussing something, it *expands* the range of misconduct politicians can engage in and kneecaps America's ability to rouse Congress to a real and full investigation.
The time to launch a public Trump-Israel/Trump-Turkey collusion probe was months ago. And that was the time for media to cover a possible Trump-Stone pardon/commutation as the public commission of a crime. Those things didn't happen -- that education and activism never occurred.
So now some people say, "What can we do?" and get angry if or when authors talk about reading books, spreading knowledge, and engaging in public activism to force media to do its job. But that was the answer to the "What can we do?" question. It was the answer months ago.
In 2019 I wrote a book on Trump-Israel collusion. I spent a year yelling about that collusion. So I'm not sure what I can do except say well, I guess media should've covered that goddamn book more, as it was right and now we're paying the price for what was in it but ignored.
All of that is the past. The question America should ask now is, "Okay, so what are we ignoring now that isn't too late to start getting educated on and pushing media to cover?" Some answers:
Trump-China collusion.
Trump-Turkey collusion.
Continued Trump-Israel collusion.
But also Trump-Venezuela collusion.
We're also ignoring the fact that the Ukraine scandal was really about the oil-and-gas industry -- not "one perfect phone call"—and was 1000% worse than people realize.
We're also ignoring the Trump-Saudi and Trump-Emirati collusion that never got investigated by Congress.
CONCLUSION: The upshot is that when crimes are being committed by a president, they don't just "get punished." There has to be a massive education campaign; then a massive media campaign; then a massive investigation; then the resultant national will leads to punishment.
* * *
Cannon here. To buttress the claim about Israel, Abramson links to an earlier Twitter thread from April. I've decided to include that thread as well. Once again: Yes, I know that Abramson is pushing a book, fervently and unashamedly. But maybe the book is well worth reading.
Here's a taste of it. The following comes from Abramson's thread...
* * *
*MAJOR BREAKING NEWS*: Bombshell Roger Stone Document Release Confirms the Israeli Government Collusion With the 2016 Trump Campaign Described in Detail in Proof of Conspiracy; Netanyahu Intermediary Sought to Use Intelligence to Deliver Election for Trump
Roger Stone search warrants reveal new clues — and mysteries — about 2016
The unsealed documents offer fresh information on Stone’s contacts with Julian Assange.
Here is the link to the new documents—and they're as explosive as anything we've seen in the last four years: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.204569/gov.uscourts.dcd.204569.29.7.pdf
I'm going to be making some references in this thread to the New York Times bestseller Proof of Conspiracy, which details the pre-election Trump-Israeli collusion now confirmed by the new documents in the Roger Stone case.
Proof of Conspiracy details significant contacts between three Israeli government-connected individuals and the 2016 Trump campaign (most notably Stone's friend and business associate Paul Manafort and Manafort's deputy Rick Gates): Joel Zamel, George Birnbaum, and Ron Dermer.
A fourth individual -- Eli Groner -- was from Benjamin Netanyahu's office itself. (And of course Netanyahu himself had contacts with Trump during the general election campaign, and so should be regarded as a fifth Israeli figure in Proof of Conspiracy and this collusion scandal.
George Birnbaum was for years a top adviser to Netanyahu. He directed Trump's campaign to work with Israeli government-linked business intelligence expert Joel Zamel on an illegal intelligence plot to aid Trump's campaign that Zamel later confirmed he'd executed pre-election.
Ron Dermer was the Israeli ambassador to the United States in 2016 -- and he repeatedly breached diplomatic convention by acting as a close adviser to the Trump campaign pre-election.
Netanyahu himself was friends with Fred Trump -- and the Netanyahus are very close to the Kushners.
Eli Groner worked in Netanyahu's office—and befriended George Papadopoulos right as Papadopoulos made his first (unsuccessful) attempt to get on Trump's campaign in mid-2015. This is one reason -- of many -- the FBI initially planned to arrest Papadopoulos as an Israeli spy.
There are other Israelis involved -- this is why Proof of Conspiracy is 600 pages and has 4,330 citations. For instance Shai Arbel—another Israeli business intelligence expert -- is key, as is Charles Tawil, who even Papadopoulos (who met with him) alleges is a likely Israeli spy.
Many of these Israelis are tied to -- no surprise -- Michael Flynn, Trump's top NatSec adviser during the 2016 general election (but a man deliberately never named to Trump's national security advisory committee, so little attention would be paid to him and what he was doing).
Flynn appears to show up in the Stone documents, referenced as "the Lieutenant General." This would fit with the Israeli plot the documents describe: Israelis working with an unnamed Turkish source connected to Flynn to illegally help Trump win the 2016 presidential election.
As most of you know, Flynn was secretly working for the Turkish government while acting as Trump's top NatSec adviser. One of his Turkish clients? Ekim Alptekin, who has substantial Israeli contacts and is connected to George Papadopoulos. (This all gets fairly confusing.)
Another Flynn associate, the Iranian-American Bijan Kian, was also lobbying for the Turks and is tied (alongside Flynn) to Joel Zamel. The upshot: Flynn was in a cadre of people (that included Rudy Giuliani, by the way) constantly in contact with the Turks and the Israelis.
What we learn about in these new docs -- the best parts of which are redacted, as U.S. intelligence is (for reasons that are unclear) committed to having the only place you can read about all this be in books like Proof of Conspiracy -- is a complex Trump-Israeli pre-election plot.
The first thing you have to know is that the Mueller report and Stone trial together established that Trump was regularly in contact with Stone during the election and lied in his written answers to Mueller when he said he remembered none of his conversations with Stone.
This is key because Stone himself -- in getting "fired" from Trump's campaign right when Flynn came aboard it -- claimed that he had left the campaign voluntarily because there were things he could do outside the campaign that he couldn't do inside of it. We now know some of them.
I'll add here that Rudy Giuliani said almost exactly the same thing when he took himself out of the running for being in Trump's administration -- and we now know that, just like Stone, he had many plans for how he could help Trump in clandestine ways outside the spotlight.
In any case, the documents establish that someone closely connected to the Israeli prime minister -- a person who appears to reside in Jerusalem -- wanted to meet directly with Trump to discuss "intel" that'd be passed to the Trump campaign in October 2016 to help him win election.
The Israelis were in charge of the scheme, though the intel was apparently going to move through Turkish sources also -- which tracks with Flynn and Giuliani both being Turkish agents and Trump having major business interests in Turkey he himself called "a conflict of interest."
Ekim Alptekin is very close to Erdogan (Turkey's president), as is Trump. Note that Erdogan and Netanyahu had every bit as much reason to secretly support Trump's candidacy as Putin, and Trump has been every bit as solicitous of both men since he was elected US president.
U.S. intelligence has done all it can to hide this Trump-Stone-Israeli plot via redactions. But even its many redactions leave a clear narrative: Stone, in consultation with Trump, was arranging meetings with foreigners promising to give Trump illegal election assistance.
Everyone always thought it'd be a smoking gun if Trump knew of the June '16 meeting his son had with Kremlin agents in Trump's home (Trump Tower). (Of course he did know -- and Michael Cohen confirms it -- but somehow the allegation never stuck.) This creates an identical scenario. But this is significantly more problematic than the June 2016 meeting, because
a) it involves Trump himself,
b) it involves the Israeli prime minister himself, and
c) it involves intelligence clearly being promised by foreigners as an "October Surprise" to help Trump win.
More than this—and even this alone would be enough to make this the biggest smoking gun released regarding pre-election Trump collusion—is that whereas those Don Jr. met with in June 2016 were only tangentially tied to Putin, we know the full web of ugly connections here.
I wrote a tome filled with thousands of major-media citations establishing Turkish infiltration of the Trump campaign and an Israeli plot to use intel activities to illegally aid the 2016 Trump campaign. In other words, this new info fits with everything we already know.
Trump colluded with the Israelis and knew he was doing it. It seems certain now, too, that he knew Flynn and Giuliani were working for Trump's "friend" Erdogan -- and that this is a reason why Trump had no issue with Flynn despite Flynn's "betrayal." Trump knew Flynn was bought.
In other words, Trump was knowingly seeking and receiving illegal election aid from the Israelis and Turks before the 2016 election -- in addition to the Russians, Saudis, and Emiratis -- and repeatedly brought foreign agents into his campaign that he knew to be foreign agents.
Moreover, Donald Trump exhibited a pattern of using people not formally part of his campaign-- Stone, Flynn, and Giuliani, along with foreign advisers Dermer, al-Otaiba, Simes, Zamel, and others -- to facilitate the exchange of measurably valuable illegal election assistance.
I've no idea why we still don't have a report from U.S. intelligence on all this -- why it's leaking out a drip at a time instead, to be collected in books like Proof of Conspiracy rather than in a public exposé of everything Trump did with foreign nationals to get elected.
I find myself speechless -- as this is all in my book, and everything that's shocking media tonight is... again, in the book. Ask anyone who's read it -- they'll confirm I'm not blowing smoke. Proof of Conspiracy outlines what really happened pre-election -- using major-media sources...
PS. Perhaps the most fascinating thing to me is that whoever Stone's intermediary to Netanyahu was, the documents indicate it was someone
a) Israeli, and
b) closer to Flynn than Stone
...which seems to point toward the redacted name being Zamel (though we can't know for sure yet).
PS2. Note that Zamel's attorney (you won't believe this) is an attorney for the Trump family, and Zamel's attorney's father is a former law partner of...Rudy Giuliani.
You can't make this stuff up.
But also: this is the M.O. of conspirators (keep it tight and share lawyers).
PS3. I've worked thousands of criminal cases as an attorney and investigator, and I'll say now what I've said all along: Historians will call this simultaneously the most complex and *obvious* criminal plot ever to not be "solved" for years... without explanation for the delay.
PS4 It really doesn't matter to me -- at all -- what anyone thinks. I'm trained in this; I have experience in this; I've written two New York Times bestsellers on this, with thousands of major-media sources. It will be regarded in history as a fact: the 2016 election was stolen.
PS5. I still remember when I wrote PROOF OF COLLUSION (my earlier, 2018 book) and someone who read the ms. asked, "Why is this stuff about Giuliani having foreknowledge of an 'October Surprise' in here?" And I said, "You'll see." Well, read the Stone documents and you'll see.
PS6. The Stone filing makes clear that the "October Surprise" had to do with Clinton's emails. And what did Giuliani—who has massive Israeli government ties—say the "October Surprise" he knew about related to? You guessed it: Hillary's emails. Joel Zamel is the key figure here.
PS7. Again, I don't ask anyone to just take my word for it that PROOF OF CONSPIRACY -- my 2019 book—covers all the background on all of this. What I suggest is finding someone you trust who's read the book -- many have -- and ask them if indeed it's been months ahead of "breaking news."
1 comment:
Neither Turkey nor Israel have put bounties on American soldiers. Let's keep our eyes on the prize, it's about Russia.
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