Article by Stu Cvrk in "RedState":
Democrats are big on prosecuting process crimes as a means of criminalizing policy differences, as well as in targeting political opponents like Donald Trump. Is that table turning?
A process crime can be defined as an offense against the “machinery of justice,” not against a particular person or property. Examples include: perjury, obstruction of justice, contempt, violations of court orders, and failures to appear. Process prosecutions are frequently brought to put pressure on subordinates in a large organization in order to obtain cooperation in bringing evidence against the real target of an investigation. An example would be to bring a process violation against a Senate staffer for lying to an FBI investigator on a trivial matter in order to work a plea deal with that staffer to divulge incriminating evidence against the real target of the investigation, i.e., the Senator. The staffer pleas out to lesser charges or reduced penalties, and law enforcement obtains through legal pressure what investigators would otherwise not be able to discover. This is standard operating procedure these days that borders on prosecutorial misconduct, especially when maximum sentences are used to force plea deals.
Scooter Libby. In 2007, he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in the leak of a CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity. A special prosecutor – Patrick Fitzgerald – had been empowered to conduct the investigation by then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey. The real targets were Vice President Cheney and President Bush, but Libby was the only person who faced legal jeopardy. A key witness recanted her testimony, which later led to commutation of the sentence and then to a presidential pardon by President Trump in April 2018.
Senator Ted Stevens. The Republican senator from Alaska was convicted in October 2008 of violating federal ethics laws by failing to report thousands of dollars in gifts he received from friends. However, DoJ prosecutors were later determined to have failed to hand over key exculpatory evidence and also knowingly presented false evidence to the jury, and the case was subsequently dismissed. But, the damage had been done, with the indictment coming just months before Stevens was up for reelection and the verdict itself just eight days before Election Day in 2008. He lost the election to Democrat Mark Begich in a very close contest, the effects of which benefitted the Democrats, as you will recall that Obamacare was passed by a single vote in December 2009 (Stevens would have been a no vote). There is a lot of detail on the prosecutorial conduct in the Stevens case here.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio was the long-time sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona. He was noted for harsh but fair treatment of captured illegal aliens who were incarcerated in a Tent City pending final disposition. A staunch opponent of open-border Democrats, Arpaio was variously accused of related criminal conduct over the years, including abuse of power, misuse of funds, racial profiling, failure to investigate sex crimes, criminal negligence, abuse of suspects in custody, improper clearance of cases, unlawful enforcement of immigration laws. The Arizona Mafia – who profit from the human and drug trafficking permitted by open borders – targeted Arpaio and succeeded in prosecuting him for “contempt of court for defying a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people simply because he suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.” He was convicted in July 2017 and pardoned a month later by President Trump.
George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos was the first defendant jailed during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation in October 2017. In exchange for a token 14-day jail sentence, he plead out by accepting responsibility for making false statements and omissions in the FBI’s investigation into the existence of any links between the Trump campaign and the Russians. New information has come to light that the prosecutors involved in the case made false filings in order to coerce the plea deal.
Roger Stone. Does anyone seriously not believe that the Mueller gang tried to get Roger Stone to turn state’s evidence against President Trump? Why else would Weissmann, Zelensky, and Rhee put the squeeze on Stone, including that pre-dawn FRI raid back in January 2019 that was obviously staged for maximum anti-Trump political benefit in coordination with CNN?
“FBI. Open the door.”
Watch exclusive CNN footage of the FBI arresting longtime Trump associate Roger Stone. Stone has been indicted by a grand jury on charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Stone was convicted on seven felony counts, including lying to authorities, obstructing a congressional investigation and witness intimidation (the latter count being questionable since the victim has since stated publicly that he didn’t feel threatened by Stone’s flamboyance). Prosecutorial irregularities continue to seep out, including the foreman’s political conflict of interest (anti-Trump, of course; did she lie on her juror form or during questioning/screening?), the judge’s denial of defense counsel requests to remove jurors, the judge’s excessive gag order on Stone that continues even after his sentencing, the enhanced excessive sentencing recommended by the Mueller prosecutors that was subsequently rescinded and changed by DoJ, the judge’s political tirade during Stone’s sentencing, and the judge’s apparent declining to declare a mistrial even when faced with the jury foreman’s obvious conflict of interest. Prosecutorial misconduct we much? (As Al Sharpton might say.)
LTG Michael Flynn. Flynn pleaded guilty to a charge of making false statements to the FBI under circumstances that are becoming increasingly suspect as more is made known about the 302s from his FBI interrogation that were very likely doctored. It is looking more and more like the original Flynn-FBI interview was a set-up intended to nail Flynn on a process crime. In addition, prosecutors Brandon Van Grack and Jocelyn Ballantine reversed a previous filing during sentencing about Flynn’s cooperation with the Russia investigation. The entire case has been recently referred for an independent review by Attorney General Barr to the US attorney’s office in St. Louis.
These cases and others highlight the feds’ use of process crimes coupled with prosecutorial misconduct (threatening excessive crimes, reversing previous agreements, withholding evidence, etc.) as tactics to extract incriminating evidence on the real targets of their politically-motivated investigations.
President Trump has recently disclosed his desire to “let the process play out” on many of these cases, as discussed in this article. Will the external reviews outside DoJ Main Justice of politically-charged cases result in some Trumpenfreude being delivered on the prosecutors and the rigged justice system itself? There are a number of clues that this is indeed what is being pursued.
1. President Trump pardoned Scooter Libby who was prosecuted by James Comey’s pal Patrick Fitzgerald.
2. Prosecutorial misconduct was discovered in the Papadopoulos plea deal that goes to the heart of the origination of the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation. Proven misconduct destroys the FBI’s predicate for their Crossfire Hurricane gambit, as well as the Mueller farce.
3. President Trump pardoned Rod Blagojevich while name-dropping James Comey who was involved in Blagojevich’s prosecution. Not a coincidence.
4. AG Barr overruled the Mueller prosecutor’s sentencing recommendations for Roger Stone while also exposing the compromised juror, putting pressure on the Obama judge to declare a mistrial or be exposed as being politically biased herself.
5. The Flynn 302s were almost certainly illegally modified by the FBI – a clear case of prosecutorial misconduct while pursuing process crimes as leverage for evidence against President Trump. The Flynn case is now undergoing an external review.
6. US Attorney John Durham is investigating FISA abuse process crimes associated with the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation and stemming from the DoJ Inspector General’s FISA abuse report.
7. Then there is this bombshell involving some of the same prosecutors who were involved in the Stone case (there are no such things as coincidences!):
House Republicans have found evidence that Russia Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team may have misled the courts and Congress and are considering making criminal referrals asking the Justice Department to investigate those prosecutors.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Just the News that his team has been scouring recent documents released by the FBI, including witness reports known as 302s, and found glaring evidence that contradicts claims the Mueller team made to courts and Congress.
“We’re now going through these 302s, and we’re going to be making criminal referrals on the Mueller dossier team, the people that put this Mueller report together,” Nunes said.
Wouldn’t it be sweet to see some of the Obama-era DoJ and FBI criminals – especially Mueller’s goons – perp-walked for a variety of process crimes and prosecutorial misconduct? Something tells me that this has been the plan all along.
Weissmann, Zelinsky, and the rest have been playing games with process crimes and prosecutorial misconduct to serve Democrat political purposes for years. Let them all taste their own bitter medicine. Turnabout is fair play.
The end.
https://www.redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2020/02/27/trumpenfreude-will-prosecutorial-misconduct-and-process-crimes-boomerang-on-democrats/