{"id":3534,"date":"2020-07-17T13:26:44","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T13:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/?p=3534"},"modified":"2026-02-04T23:06:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T05:06:21","slug":"president-trumps-commutation-of-roger-stones-sentence-subverts-the-rule-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/president-trumps-commutation-of-roger-stones-sentence-subverts-the-rule-of-law\/","title":{"rendered":"President Trump\u2019s Commutation of Roger Stone\u2019s Sentence Subverts the Rule of Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Robert E. Lehrer, Board Member of the Chicago Council of Lawyers<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Almost immediately after President Trump\u2019s July 10 commutation<\/a> of Roger Stone\u2019s 40-month prison sentence (Stone being Trump\u2019s longtime friend and confidante, a 2016 campaign adviser\u2014and a convicted felon), Senator Chris Murphy (D. Ct.) explained the provenance of the commutation on Twitter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is, like, super simple, right? Stone had info that would have put Trump in jail. He told Trump he’d obstruct justice if he got clemency. Trump agreed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Explaining why the commutation subverts the rule of law in our democratic republic is a much more complex task than explaining its provenance.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it turns out, Senator Murphy\u2019s \u201csimple\u201d analysis\nelegantly explains both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the agreement between Trump and Stone.Even\nbefore the FBI arrested Roger Stone in January 2019\u2014principally for lying to\nCongress about his role, and Trump\u2019s, in facilitating Russian interference in\nthe 2016 election\u2014he expressed his loyalty<\/a> to his longtime friend: \u201cI will never roll on Donald\nTrump,\u201d Stone said. Critically, he thereby suggested, however, that he had<\/em>\ninformation worth rolling\u2014such information being the stuff from which\nprosecutorial deals are made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in the 18-months between Stone\u2019s arrest and the\ncommutation, Stone ofttimes publicly professed his hope for clemency given his\ncontinuing refusal to cooperate with prosecutors. Stone\u2019s trial itself\nconfirmed the elements of a quid pro quo deal in the making.  Prosecutors argued that Stone had lied to\nCongress in order to protect <\/em>the President and a jury convicted Stone of\nall seven felony charges against him. In turn, Judge\nAmy Berman Jackson<\/a>, in explaining Stone\u2019s sentence, said: \u201c[Stone] was not\nprosecuted for standing up for the President,\u201d but \u201cfor covering up for the\nPresident.\u201d Following the sentencing, Stone launched a television and social\nmedia campaign appealing for clemency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the ordeal, Trump repeatedly expressed\nsympathy for Stone\u2019s position, contending that he (Stone) was the victim of a\npolitical prosecution by elements of the \u201cdeep state\u201d<\/a>\nwithin the President\u2019s own Justice Department. And in the days before the\ncommutation, Trump signaled that he had decided to grant Stone what Stone had\nbeen seeking in exchange for his silence. Told by Howie Carr, a radio talk show\nhost on State Radio that Stone was \u201cpraying\u201d for a pardon before he had to\nreport to prison, Trump\nstated<\/a>: \u201cif you say he is praying, his prayer may be answered.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stone, in any event, knew that clemency was on its\nway, and<\/em> why. In an extraordinary interview<\/a> with Howard Fineman (an NBC contributor) hours before\nthe public announcement of the commutation, Stone said that his hope of\nclemency was well-founded because<\/em> Trump knew he had resisted intense\npressure from federal prosecutors to cooperate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the commutation, Trump delivered on his part of the\nagreement the two had reached: clemency in exchange for silence\u2014past, present,\nand future. A promise sought, a promise made, a promise kept. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A commonly accepted, general understanding of the \u201crule of law\u201d is that all people are subject to law that is fairly applied and enforced. The fair application and enforcement of the law by the government in turn means, at least: everyone is treated equally under the law; facts matter because truth matters, and the facts are the path to the truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s commutation of Stone\u2019s sentence subverts these\nprinciples of the rule of law. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the government to treat everyone as equals under the law, it must treat its friends and foes alike\u2014friends<\/em> not being extended special favors while foes<\/em> are subject to special burdens. Especially is this so when the favors being extended are correctly understood as also benefiting the government favor-givers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agreement between Trump and Stone requires the\nconclusion that Trump commuted Stone\u2019s sentence principally to protect himself\nagainst likely federal and\/or state criminal prosecution based in part on Stone\u2019s\ntestimony, were he to offer it. The prosecutions will come sooner or later\u2014sooner\nif Trump were to lose his reelection bid, later if he were to win it. Trump\nalso commuted Stone\u2019s sentence to prevent further erosion of his reelection\nprospects were Stone to \u201croll\u201d on Trump before the election.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Washington Post<\/em>, in its editorial following\nthe commutation, is therefore justified in describing this as \u201cone of the most\nnauseating instances of corrupt government favoritism the United States has ever\nseen\u201d making it, accordingly, a \u201cperversion of justice.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the facts and the truth, the White House attempted to justify the commutation by dismissing the charges against Stone as \u201cprocess-based.\u201d It asserted that these charges had nothing to do with any underlying substantive \u201ccriminality\u201d on Stone\u2019s part, but only, it suggested, with some procedural missteps he may have made\u2014so trivial that they were unworthy of the Justice Department\u2019s attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote an op-ed<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em> discussing the commutation. He explains that far from being unworthy of prosecution, the crimes with which Stone was charged and ultimately convicted\u2014obstruction of a congressional investigation, making false statements to Congress, and witness tampering\u2014required<\/em> prosecution because such crimes subvert a governmental function essential to the maintenance of the rule of law, which is to obtain \u201caccurate information from its witnesses.\u201d \u201cWhen a subject [such as Stone] lies to [Congressional] investigators [and tampers with a witness],\u201d he wrote, \u201cit strikes at the core of the government\u2019s efforts to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Robert E. Lehrer, Board Member of the Chicago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judicial-performance-and-accountability"],"yoast_head":"\nPresident Trump\u2019s Commutation of Roger Stone\u2019s Sentence Subverts the Rule of Law - Chicago Council of Lawyers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/president-trumps-commutation-of-roger-stones-sentence-subverts-the-rule-of-law\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"President Trump\u2019s Commutation of Roger Stone\u2019s Sentence Subverts the Rule of Law - Chicago Council of Lawyers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Written by Robert E. 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