ONCE UPON A TIME ...

                        

For many of us, there are historical events that are so jarring, we can, forty or sixty years later, remember where we were and what we doing when we learned of them. I was just under 8 yrs.-old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and I can remember sitting in our living room on Carroll Street in Brooklyn listening to FDR on the radio.

I was in my classroom in PS 221 on Empire Blvd, when our teacher told us that FDR had died.

I was working at my desk at Paul, Weiss when somebody came in to tell me JFK was shot, and years later I was in physical therapy on 52d street when the music playing on the ceiling speakers was interrupted with the report of one, then two airplanes hit the twin towers. Afterwards, limping back to the firm, I looked down Fifth Ave and saw smoke pouring out of one of the towers.

I was at somebody's cocktail party on October 20, 1973, when I learned of the Saturday Night Massacre.

The Saturday Night Massacre floored me. It was such a gross assault on the rule of law, that I wondered whether Nixon would order troops to patrol the streets the next morning. I had had extensive conversations and negotiations with Attorney General Elliot Richardson just months earlier regarding the Agnew plea. I knew Elliot to be a man of principle, and respected his decision to quit when Nixon demanded he fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

I was sitting in this chair some days ago when I learned the details of the Roger Stone fiasco. I immediately thought of that night in 1973. I respected the decision of the four federal prosecutors who quit the Stone criminal case after the President publicly excoriated them and their bosses at DOJ humiliated them by pulling the sentencing memo they had submitted to the court.  Trump not only complained about the  prosecutor's 7-9-year sentence recommendation, he characterized the entire prosecution of his long-time friend and campaign advisor, as "horrible," ''an unacceptable miscarriage of justice," claiming it was brought about by "corrupt people," and he actually demanded the prosecutors "apologize to Stone!"

A few facts about this case to bring it into perspective. Stone was charged with SEVEN felony counts: obstructing a congressional investigation (1 count), lying to congress (5 counts), and witness tampering (1 count). Stone demanded that a potential witness, Credico, a liberal comic/radio personality, support Stone's lies to congress regarding Creico's contacts with Wikileaks. If he refused, "Prepare to die, cocksucker!" was the threat, and Stone's instructions and demands on how to give false testimony were repeated again and again.

Stone refused to plead out, and went to trial before a jury that unanimously convicted him on all counts after only seven hours of deliberation.

For his crimes, Stone faced up to 50 years in prison, but applying the non-binding federal sentencing guidelines, the probation department recommended a sentence of 7-9 years, and the government, via its four-member trial team, endorsed the recommendation.

That's when Trump went ballistic and not only accused the prosecutors of being corrupt, he attacked the Mueller report, accused the trial judge of putting Manafort in solitary--a totally false allegation-- and attacked the foreperson of the jury as being biased!

The DOJ responded immediately by withdrawing the memo submitted by the four trial lawyers and submitted a new one suggesting a sentence of "far less" time would be appropriate. They left the matter totally in charge of the judge's discretion (duh, nice of them, cause that's the law, whether the DOJ bosses recommended it or not), and they did say that a sentence of 3-5 years was more in line with other cases.

That's when the four prosecutors quit the case. (One left the DOJ altogether.)  And that's when Trump tweeted his congrats to Bill Barr. The next day Barr, facing a revolt in the Department, publicly asked the President to stop tweeting about the DOJ. Trump replied by patting him on the head, basically saying, "good dog, not to worry, I still love you," while his press secretary issued a statement saying the President would continue to exercise his "First Amendment rights!"

The Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court showed her devotion to the Constitution by issuing a statement defending the independence of the courts. The Chief Justice of the United States showed his devotion to the Republican Party  by keeping his mouth shut.

No, I don't believe this outrageous interference with the rule of law will result in yet another impeachment inquiry. (Congress opened one the Monday after the Saturday Night Massacre.) But I do believe that somebody out there, indeed I hope a lot of somebodies out there, will see this as another reason to switch his vote from this irresponsible child-tyrant come November.

One final thought: Credico, who testified against Stone, said at trial, and in a recent interview with Michelle Goldberg of the NYT, that when Stone said to him, "Prepare to die, cocksucker,'' he did not fear Stone that would kill him, but that Credico would become a target for someone wearing a red MAGA cap.

 I am reminded of the abortion case we tried years ago in Portland, OR, where the crazies endorsed the killing of physicians. The courts upheld our argument that under the unique circumstance of that case, encouraging others to do violence was an illegal "threat," even lacking proof that the speakers themselves intended to do the killing.

Encouraging others was enough.

In this heated environment, are our prosecutors, judges, and jurors now to be concerned about making a decision the Commander-in-Chief does not like?

And, horrible of horribles, now that this irresponsible President has painted a target on the backs of four prosecutors, a federal judge, and a juror, what if ...?

A bientot!

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As my regular readers know, there is no fixed schedule for these posts. If you want a notice of each new posting, send me an email and I will add you to the notice list.  mlondon34@gmail.com

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 If you want more information about my dealings with Elliot Richardson in the Agnew case, or the details of the Portland abortion case, see my memoir "The Client Decides" available on Amazon and Kindle.