All four career prosecutors handling the case against Roger
Stone withdrew from the legal proceedings — and one quit his job
entirely — after the Justice Department signaled it planned to undercut their
sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s longtime friend and confidant, reported the
Washington Post.
The sudden and dramatic moves came after prosecutors and
their superiors had argued for days over the appropriate penalty for Stone, and
exposed what some career Justice Department employees say is a continuing
pattern of the historically independent law enforcement institution being bent
to Trump’s political will.
Almost simultaneously, Trump decided to revoke the
nomination to a top Treasury Department post for his former D.C. U.S. attorney,
who had supervised the Stone case when it went to trial.
The cascade of controversy began Monday, when career
prosecutors handling the case recommended a judge sentence Stone — convicted in November of obstructing
Congress and witness tampering — to between seven and nine years in federal
prison.
Stone has been a friend and adviser to Trump since the 1980s
and was a key figure in his 2016 campaign, working to discover damaging
information on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. His was the last conviction
secured by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as part of the investigation
into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The president suggested angrily
on Twitter that Stone deserved more lenient treatment.
“This is a horrible and very unfair situation,” Trump wrote early Tuesday morning. “The real crimes were on the
other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of
justice!”
leadership was “shocked” by the recommendation of a seven-
to nine-year sentence and would soon revise it.
“That recommendation
is not what had been briefed to the department,” the official said, speaking on
the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. “The department finds
the recommendation extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone’s
offenses.”
One by one, the career prosecutors, two of whom had worked
on Mueller’s investigation, filed notices in court of their intention to leave
the case. Though none of the prosecutors gave a reason, their asking to do so
was highly unusual and suggested they could not ethically affix their names to
the government’s revised position.
Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the
White House did not communicate with the agency on Monday or Tuesday about the
Stone case, and that the decision to reverse course was made before Trump’s
tweet.
Trump told reporters later Tuesday, “I have not been involved
in it at all,” though in the same remarks he called the career prosecutors’
initial recommendation “an insult to our country.”
“That was a horrible aberration. These are, I guess, the
same Mueller people that put everybody through hell and I think it was a
disgrace,” Trump said. “They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
Jonathan Kravis, one of the prosecutors on the Stone case,
wrote in a court filing that he had resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney,
leaving government altogether. Three others — Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, Adam Jed and
Michael Marando — filed notices with the judge saying “please notice the
withdrawal” from the case.
Zelinsky, a former member of Mueller’s team, also indicated
in a filing he was quitting his special assignment to the D.C. U.S. attorney’s
office, though a spokeswoman said he will remain an assistant U.S. attorney in
Baltimore.
Through a spokeswoman, Zelinsky declined to comment. Jed and
Kravis also declined to comment. Marando could not immediately be reached.
As the drama unfolded Tuesday afternoon, Trump also decided
to withdraw his nomination of former D.C. U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu to serve
as Treasury Department undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes,
people familiar with the matter said. The withdrawal was first reported by
Axios.
The reason was not clear. Liu had left her U.S. attorney
post last month in a somewhat unusual move, because she had not yet received
Senate confirmation for her new job. She was replaced on an interim basis by Timothy Shea,
a former counselor to Attorney General William P. Barr.
An administration official said Trump has been lobbied
extensively against Liu by those who did not like how she handled the D.C. U.S.
attorney’s office — particularly as it related to the Mueller
probe. Several people familiar with the matter said Liu had no role in
Stone’s sentencing recommendation, having left the office before it was sent to
supervisors for approval. Liu, whose confirmation hearing had been
scheduled for Thursday, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Former Justice Department officials and others characterized
the department’s abrupt shift on the case as an egregious example of the
president and his attorney general manipulating federal law enforcement to
serve their political interests.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked the
Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate, writing, “this situation
has all the indicia of improper political interference in a criminal
prosecution.”
, a former Justice Department official, called it a
“shocking, cram-down political intervention” in the criminal justice process.
“We are now truly at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment
for the Justice Dept.,” he wrote on Twitter.
Eric Holder, attorney general under President Barack Obama,
said it was “unprecedented, wrong and ultimately dangerous.”
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) said the move amounted to
“obstruction of justice.”
“We are seeing a full-frontal assault on the rule of law in
America,” Pascrell said. “Direct political interference in our justice system
is a hallmark of a banana republic. Despite whatever Trump, William Barr, and
their helpers think, the United States is a nation of laws and not an
authoritarian’s paradise.”
In its revised sentencing recommendation, the Justice
Department essentially took aim at its own line attorneys, saying their
previous guidance “could be considered excessive and unwarranted under the
circumstances.” The memorandum was signed by Shea and his criminal division
supervisor, John Crabb Jr.
“Ultimately, the
government defers to the Court as to what specific sentence is appropriate
under the facts and circumstances of this case,” they wrote.
The decision to file a new sentencing memo was made by
officials in the attorney general’s office and the deputy attorney general’s
office, according to a senior Justice Department official. The official
could not point to another instance of Justice Department headquarters
overruling and replacing a sentencing memorandum a day after a filing but
insisted it was not unusual for law enforcement officials to “correct the
record.”
“I don’t think anyone thinks this went smoothly,” the
official said, while declining to discuss who knew what inside the department
about the Stone sentencing recommendation.
Like the original sentencing recommendation, the official
said the withdrawal of the Stone prosecution team came as a surprise.
Barr has previously faced criticism for seeking to protect
Trump and undercut the special counsel’s work.
In perhaps the most notable instance, he sent
Congress a letter before the special counsel’s
report was publicly released, describing what he called the investigation’s principal
conclusions. Mueller, Barr wrote, did not find that the Trump campaign
coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election, and reached no
conclusion on whether Trump had obstructed justice. Barr wrote that he and
then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein reviewed the matter and
concluded there was insufficient evidence to make an obstruction case.
The bare-bones description so infuriated the special
counsel’s team that Mueller wrote to Barr to complain that the attorney
general’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of
the Russia probe. Barr, though, repeated his description at a news
conference before Mueller’s full report was released, drawing criticism that he
was trying to shape public opinion in a way favorable to Trump.
Mueller closed his office in May, though some members of his
team stayed on special assignments to the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office to handle
cases — including Stone’s — that were not resolved. People familiar with the
matter say there was tension between them and their supervisors on what penalty
to recommend.
As Monday’s court deadline neared for prosecutors to give a
sentencing recommendation, it was still unclear what the office would do, even
after days of internal debates, according to people familiar with the matter
who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal
deliberations.
Front-line prosecutors argued for a prison sentence on the
higher end, while their bosses wanted to calculate the guidelines differently
to get to a lower sentence. The debate centered around whether they should seek
more prison time for obstruction that impedes the administration of justice,
these people said.
In the end, the office filed a recommendation keeping with
the line prosecutors’ goals, and rejecting the lighter recommendation sought by
their superiors, the people said.
Hours before the filing was due Monday, Shea, the new head
of the D.C. office and a former close adviser to Barr, had not made a final
decision on Stone’s sentencing recommendation, they said.
A Justice Department official said senior leaders were led
to believe it would be lighter than what was ultimately filed. But some legal
observers were skeptical, and the department declined to provide a more
detailed account.
Stone is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Amy Berman
Jackson on Feb. 20.
Mary McCord, a former prosecutor and acting assistant
attorney general for the department’s national security division,
said decisions related to the sentencing of such high-profile political
figures would not be made without initial consultation between a U.S.
attorney’s office and Justice Department headquarters, andthat it was is hard
to imagine the department was truly taken aback.
“There is no way you can come away from this with anything
other than an impression that Justice is taking its orders from the president
and pandering to the president,” McCord said. “This is causing lasting and
long-term damage to the department’s reputation and credibility.”
It can be common for prosecutors to disagree about
sentencing recommendations, especially when it comes to politically sensitive
cases. It would have been unusual, however, for the U.S. attorney’s office to
endorse a sentence below the guideline range after winning conviction at trial,
according to former federal prosecutors.
In the initial 22-page sentencing recommendation, the career
prosecutors wrote that a sentence of 87 to 108 months, “consistent with the
applicable advisory Guidelines would accurately reflect the seriousness of
[Stone’s] crimes and promote respect for the law.”
Kravis and Marando were part of the U.S. attorney’s office
in D.C. Jed and Zelinsky were members of Mueller’s team on special assignment
to the office. Kravis and Zelinsky revealed the resignations in formal notices
of withdrawal from the Stone case. Jed and Marando asked to withdraw but gave
no immediate indication they were resigning from the government.
Crabb, the head of the D.C. office’s criminal division and
also a career prosecutor, entered the case in their place.
Stone’s defense on Monday asked for a sentence of probation,
citing his age, 67, and lack of criminal history. They also noted that of seven
Mueller defendants who have been sentenced, only one faces more than a six-month
term: former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is serving 7½ years.
Given the hardships and loss of professional standing
suffered by Stone and his family, “No one could seriously contend that a
[reduced . . .] sentence would cause anyone to walk away from these proceedings
believing that one can commit the offenses at issue here with impunity,”
defense attorneys Bruce S. Rogow, Robert C. Buschel and Grant J. Smith wrote.
Federal sentencing guidelines are calculated using
mathematical formulas. While prosecutors and defense lawyers make
recommendations based on their calculations, ultimately it is up to the judge
to decide which factors to consider in sentencing someone, and whether to
adhere to the recommendation or depart.
In Stone’s case, the prosecutors came up with a
recommendation of seven to nine years based on a number of aggravating factors,
including an alleged threat to harm a witness, to whom Stone sent the message,
“prepare to die,” and because prosecutors decided Stone’s conduct resulted in
“substantial interference in the administration of justice.”
Under the federal sentencing guidelines’ point system, those
factors add years to Stone’s prospective prison sentence. Stone and the witness
in question, Randy Credico, both have maintained Stone’s statement was not a
threat of violence, but part of Stone’s history of making bombastic statements.
In their Monday filing, prosecutors argued more time should
be added to Stone’s sentence because of his extensive criminal conduct, which
stretched two years, and because they say he obstructed the prosecution of the
case after he was charged.
In a Tuesday filing from Shea and Crabb, the government
argued those enhancements were overkill, noting that Stone’s victim has asked
for leniency for him and did not view the statement as an actual threat. The
new filing also contended that the enhancements endorsed in the previous
government filing were not in keeping with the sentences generally doled out to
nonviolent offenders.
Tuesday’s filing suggested — but did not outright recommend
— that a sentence of three to four years would be reasonable, and “more in line
with the typical sentences imposed in obstruction cases.”
Prosecutors in another case brought by the special counsel’s
office, against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, also
recently walked back a sentencing recommendation — though the move was subtle.
In early January, prosecutors recommended that Flynn,
who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about
his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., be sentenced “within the
Guidelines range” of zero to six months in prison. But in another filing just
weeks later, they made clear they agreed with Flynn “that a sentence of
probation is a reasonable.”
Prosecutors did not explain in the later filing why they
emphasized probation as a reasonable sentence for Flynn. Both documents were
signed by career prosecutors — Brandon L. Van Grack and Jocelyn Ballantine —
though Van Grack has not signed some later filings in the case. Flynn is
now seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, alleging
a variety of government misconduct.
Barr has been critical of the FBI’s 2016 investigation into
Trump’s campaign that Mueller ultimately took over. When the Justice Department
inspector general found last year that the bureau had adequate cause to open
the case, Barr issued a remarkable public statement registering his
disagreement. He said the case was initiated “on the thinnest of suspicions
that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.”
“It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence
produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory,” he added.
Barr has tasked the U.S. attorney in Connecticut with
exploring the origins of the case, and current and former law enforcement
officials have expressed concern that it might be an effort to undercut an
investigation because Trump did not like it.
Posts
