Tuesday Night Massacre: Prosecutors Resign

Prosecutors Quit Roger Stone Case After Justice Dept. Intervenes on Sentencing

"These resignations are the canary in the coal mine," said Chuck Rosenberg, acting administrator of the DEA under President Obama, speaking on MSNBC.

Here are the courageous four of the headline above, described by the New York Times: 

• Jonathan Kravis, Asst. US Attorney, who resigned completely from the Justice Dept.; 
• Aaron S. J. Zelinsky, Asst. US Attorney for the District of Columbia; 
• Adam C. Jed, Special Asst. US Attorney, who worked on the Mueller investigation; and 
• Michael J. Marando, Asst. US Attorney for the District of Columbia.

"On Tuesday, the four main federal prosecutors working on the obstruction and perjury case of Roger J. Stone Jr. shared another distinction: They quit the case. The abrupt withdrawals came after the Justice Department overruled their recommendation for a stiffer sentence for Mr. Stone, a longtime friend and informal adviser of President Trump. One of the prosecutors resigned outright."

"Get ready to die," Roger Stone told a witness, NY radio host Randy Credico..  For that and other interference, Stone was convicted of witness tampering.  He himself was also convicted of lying several times to protect dt and was recommended to have a sentence of 7-9 years--until dt demanded that it be reduced.

Stone also posted an image of the face of the judge in his case with the cross hairs of a gun over it.  Then she banned him from social media.

"The prosecutors--one of whom resigned from the department--were said to be furious over the

"The Stone case was one of the most high-profile criminal prosecutions arising from the nearly two-year investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III."
reversal of their sentencing request, filed in federal court late Monday," wrote Katie Benner, Sharon LaFraniere, and Adam Goldman in their NYT report today headlined "Justice Dept. Acts To Ease Sentence For a Trump Ally." 

Furthermore, the four only learned of their sentencing recommendation being reduced after Fox news had reported it.

The president complained that Colonel Vindman had misled Congresss about his July 25 phone call, but actually "his version of the call closely tracked the written record released by the White House," the article noted.  Vindman's actual offense, in dt's mind, was that "he did testify that he thought it was inappropriate to ask a foreign country to tarnish the president's domestic political opponents."

Two more female political appointees whose recommendations for promotion in the next day or two were withdrawn on Tuesday:

• Elaine McCusker, the Defense Dept. official who questioned the aid freeze.
• Jessie K. Liu, a US attorney who prosecuted Roger Stone.

Being female and opposing dt is a recipe for disaster.

Another woman under attack is Victoria Coates, a deputy national security adviser who was rumored to be the "Anonymous" who wrote   She is not the author, according to the publisher, but there is "feverish speculation about whether she would be pushed out."

Lesson learned by dt?  "The Republican party will not hold him accountable, no matter how egregious his behavior," says Chuck Rosenberg.  It's "a breakdown of the system like nothing I've ever seen in my career." 

Trump continues to lie outrageously: "These people [Mike Flynn and Roger Stone] were hurt viciously by these corrupt people."  Actually, Flynn and Stone are the corrupt ones, convicted by courts for their corruption.

Ari Melber on The Beat with MSNBC today details the worst threat to democracy since Nixon's Saturday night massacre, calling it "the Tuesday night massacre" as many have.

"A Republic if you can keep it," said Ben Franklin, quoted often by Democrats during the Senate impeachment trial.  

"And we can't keep it," said a lawyer today on Ari Melber's The Beat.

This president has "infected the Justice Department with a virus, another guest said.  

He defies Congress and controls the Justice Department through his hand-picked Attorney General William Barr.

So much for the balance of powers.  The legislative branch and the judicial branch have been taken over by the executive branch of our supposedly "three equal branches" government.

We're becoming the Soviet Union--a totalitarian state.

"We're headed toward a descent into authoritarianism," warns Senator Elizabeth Warren.