Remember the good ol’ days when a chance airport meeting between a former President and the AG was evidence of improper influence on the DoJ?
Now, the President using the DoJ as his personal law firm barely registers a peep will the same crowd.
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Trump and Barr are giving lying sacks of shit a bad name . . .
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Plus this is all a misdirection, to a degree. The prosecutors and the muckamucks of the DOJ don’t make the sentencing decision, the judge for the case does. They may have to follow certain sentencing guidelines, but they have the authority to make the ultimate choice, right? I guess I don’t know how much the prosecution’s recommendation can or must affect the judge’s ruling.
Barring things like statutory “Three Strikes” laws and “Zero Tolerance” ordinances, my understanding is that the judge has a lot of discretion with sentencing. So while the DOJ can make these extreme reversals, the judge can ignore them and make their own ruling. Or is there something that would restrict the judge to hold to the DOJ’s recommendation, plus or minus some amount?
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Nope - there isn’t anything so far as I know that keeps a federal judge from sentencing someone based on their own reasoning. State court judges do follow prosecutor’s recommendations more often than not but federal judges don’t always.
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The thing that’s ludicrous, Hogan Gidley, is that a person named Hogan Gidley who actually looks like a Hogan Gidley, by which I mean he looks like a punk-ass rich snot crossed with the classic bully’s sycophantic sidekick, that a person named Hogan Gidley who looks it would take his snot-nose self out on a national stage and talk a bunch of idiotic lies and expect that any rational adult would believe a word of it. That’s what’s ludicrous, you god-damned little punk. Oh, and I had no intent to offend you. This is just how things seem to me, objectively.
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Gidley said. “They made this decision on their own because they, in fact, were briefed on something as they said from the DOJ that didn’t actually end up happening. They were told something in that sentencing that didn’t come to fruition.”
I’d like some clarity on what that thing “that didn’t come to fruition” was. Was it because Stone didn’t actually kill Credico’s dog?
While I have no doubt Gidley lies whenver his lips move, it also is worth noting that one aspect of any power structure – authoritarian dictatorship, media corporation, religious cult – is the willingness of underlings to “self-censor” or “self-oppress” out of fear and hopelessness, in an effort to avoid a short, sharp, shock themselves, and to ingratiate themselves with those at the top. Sometimes, it’s conscious; sometimes, it’s simply a subconscious survival mode from long-term trauma.
Trump didn’t need to pressure Barr; Barr didn’t need to pressure his deputies; his deputies didn’t need to pressure those to whom the Stone prosecutors directly reported. Everyone in the sick, dysfunctional chain knew what to do in the shadow of Trump. Those poor prosecutors in the trenches never had a chance.
This is how authoritarian regimes, both public and private, function and perpetuate their hold. It’s the Putin model, the Xi model, and the Kim model. This is where Trump is rapidly taking America – enabled every step of the way by a senate majority of craven GOP bootlickers.
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They’re all just working off the same dictatorial mold going back through the ages. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” and all that.
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“Will no one rid me of this troublesome prick?”
Yeah, that sounds better, the other one is so old.
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OH Kay
what ever you say mr. credible
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That was sort of the point. Modern dictators aren’t really doing anything new. It’s an age-old tactic. I was specifically referencing Henry II, not trying to offer a Trumpian adaptation.
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No.
That would be the Attorney General.
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“In fact, the attorney general and DOJ made very clear that they made this decision before any tweet went out,” Gidley said.
Good God! So nothing actually happens until Trump tweets about it?
So Trump doesn’t have a telephone in his office that he can pick up and talk to anyone he wants to? So Trump can’t call up the DOJ and say “get this done now – I want to tweet about it.”
Truly the most transparent administration in history. Anyone over the age of ten should be able to see right through them.
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Just so it’s not personal. I understand, of course, that you were commenting specifically and solely on his professional job duties and performance.
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Yep. His war is against the institutions of U.S. government and the very concept of American democracy, rule of law, and common decency.
Very true. Fair comment, it’s called. For instance, personal appearance can be said to matter to job performance in this role. If your sniveling little rat-weasel face effectively screams that you’re a smarmy little ass-kissing power-worshipping sycophantic punk-ass snake, it diminishes your effectiveness. Unfair, perhaps, but it does matter.
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Gidley replied “unequivocally no”
Meaning yes.
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Times 10,000.
I came here to say something similar, but without your eloquence.
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