'Angst, anger and disappointment': Roger Stone intervention stokes uncertainty across federal justice system
WASHINGTON – It started, like many political firestorms before it, with a tweet.
Unhappy with federal prosecutors’ stiff sentencing recommendation for longtime Republican political operative Roger Stone, President Donald Trump took aim at his own Justice Department.
Soon after, the DOJ backtracked.
More than a week later, and after a cascade of disclosures, virtually every corner of the federal criminal justice system has been shaken. Prosecutors, former prosecutors, even judges have expressed concern about the appearance of political intervention in criminal cases.
Nick Ackerman, a former Watergate prosecutor who served under four presidents at the Justice Department, said Trump is undertaking the most concerted effort to politicize the department in at least 50 years.
"It makes Watergate look like child's play," Ackerman said. "I can't think of anything that comes even close."
Attorney General William Barr asserted he changed course on Stone's sentence before Trump's angry tweet, but the public disagreement about the appropriate punishment for a close friend of the president has set off alarms inside and outside the government.
Hours after the Justice Department announced it would rescind the sentencing recommendation, the entire prosecution team quit in protest, sending a shiver from Washington to some of the Justice Department’s most far-flung outposts.
More than 2,000 former Justice officials, whose collective service spans more than five presidents, called for the attorney general’s resignation.
The anxiety has seeped into the traditionally impenetrable chambers of federal judges, some of whom have been called out by Trump for their handling of politically sensitive cases. That includes U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who sentenced Stone on Thursday to just more than three years in prison.
Trump has not let up. He said he has the "legal right" to intervene in cases. Tuesday, he issued pardons and commuted sentences of high-profile people whose crimes are similar to the ones his allies were convicted of. Wednesday, Trump returned to his grievance that the DOJ targeted his presidential campaign.
His actions have cast a shadow over the ornate, fifth-floor suite where Barr, according to a person familiar with his thinking, has weighed resigning. The Justice Department said Tuesday he has no plans to quit.
Among the public, "there seems to be ... a lack of appreciation for just how serious a crisis we're in right now as far as a democracy," said Bruce Udolf, former chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity section. He served as associate independent counsel during the Clinton Whitewater investigation.
Udolf said Trump's constant meddling is "infuriating, and nobody's stopping it."
'Angst, anger and disappointment' in Los Angeles US attorney's office
In an internal email to staff last week, Los Angeles U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna sought to bolster the sagging spirits of his office.
The short message, in which Hanna expressed pride in the work of the attorneys and staffers assigned to the vast LA office, did not directly refer to the Stone case and other prosecutions that have drawn scrutiny.
A person familiar with the email said the timing was “clearly a response to the mood and the atmosphere in the office” after last week's withdrawal of four prosecutors who recommended Stone serve seven to nine years in prison.
Stone, 67, a longtime GOP operative, was found guilty in November of lying to Congress and obstructing the Russia investigation to protect Trump and his presidential campaign.
“There was a pretty high level of angst, anger and disappointment," said the person in the LA office, who is not authorized to comment publicly.
The anxiety in Los Angeles has largely abated, but staffers in other offices, including Washington, described similar concerns that ebbed somewhat last week after Barr, in an ABC News interview, urged Trump to "stop the tweeting" about the Justice Department and pending criminal cases.
"I am not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody ... whether it's Congress, a newspaper editorial board or the president," Barr said. "I'm gonna do what I think is right. I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me."
Emphasizing the break with Trump, the Justice Department announced Feb. 14 that prosecutors would not pursue criminal charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe in a long-standing leak investigation. Trump has called for the prosecution of several former FBI officials, including McCabe.
But hours later, it came to light that Barr appointed an outside prosecutor to review the case of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who awaits sentencing in federal court after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.
The review is likely to evaluate complaints raised by the retired Army general's defense team about the government's tactics and allegations of misconduct, a person familiar with the matter said.
A longtime staffer at Justice Department headquarters said some colleagues were taken aback by news of the Flynn review, a day after Barr appeared to defend the department against political influence.
Another measure of how much the intervention in the Stone case has roiled rank-and-file prosecutors came in an unusual statement last week from the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys.
The group, regarded as the "bar association" for the country's federal prosecutors, said government lawyers in the Stone case "properly exercised their discretion" to recommend a sentence.
"Recommendations on sentencing should be developed by the career prosecutors assigned to a particular case and their supervisors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office," the group said. "These recommendations are, and should be, made impartially and without the political influence of elected officials."
Defender in chief: DOJ's intervention in Roger Stone case cements William Barr's role as Trump's ally
'No attorney general should be reviewing sentencing memorandums'
Throughout the Trump administration, former Justice Department officials have not been shy about airing their grievances with the president and their former agency.
Last spring, hundreds of federal prosecutors signed a petition declaring that Trump, if not for Justice Department policy that prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president, would have been charged with obstruction of justice based on evidence gathered in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
The group's conclusion sharply differed with Barr, who concluded that Mueller's team did not offer sufficient evidence to support such a case.
The whipsaw of events last week triggered the most dramatic backlash when more than 2,000 former Justice officials – whose service spans decades of Republican and Democratic leadership – called on Barr to resign, asserting that his handling of the Stone case "openly and repeatedly flouted" the principle of equal justice.
"Although there are times when political leadership appropriately weighs in on individual prosecutions, it is unheard of for the department’s top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the president, as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case," they wrote.
Roger Stone sentence: How prosecutors came up with a stiff sentence for Roger Stone.
Elkan Abramowitz, a former criminal division chief in Manhattan's Southern District of New York who left the department in the aftermath of Watergate, said he was moved to sign the petition because of Barr's intervention in Stone's case and the decision to review Flynn's.
"This is probably one of the worst situations," Abramowitz said. "No attorney general should be reviewing sentencing memorandums. That's absolutely unheard of."
In the ABC interview, Barr said he directed staff to revise the Stone sentencing filing because he was "surprised" it went against his recommendation that prosecutors defer to the judge.
The attorney general said he made that decision before Trump's tweet blasting the prosecutors' initial recommendation, which was "brought to my attention" while officials were revising the sentencing memo.
This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2020
"That sort of illustrates how disruptive these tweets can be for the Department of Justice," Barr told ABC.
His explanation has fallen short with some.
Rhonda Backinoff served at the Justice Department under five presidents, first as an assistant U.S. attorney in New Mexico and later as assistant director for the Office of Legal Education in South Carolina. She said she signed the petition because of Barr's intervention in the Stone case.
Backinoff said there's a simple, overarching principle at the heart of a manual provided to all new federal prosecutors: "The rule of law applies to everyone."
Roger Stone sentenced Thursday
Despite the weeklong tumult that has marked the Stone case, Judge Jackson pushed forward with Thursday's sentencing of the flamboyant political operative.
At Thursday's hearing, Jackson described the Justice Department's actions as "unprecedented."
She declared that Stone was "not prosecuted for standing up for the president; he was prosecuted for covering up for the president."
Nominated to the bench a decade ago by President Barack Obama, Jackson has been a repeated target of Trump's criticism, including a taunting reference to her role in the case of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Before his conviction in two financial fraud cases, Jackson revoked Manafort's bond for tampering with prospective witnesses.
"Is this the judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something not even mobster Al Capone had to endure?" Trump tweeted last week. "How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!"
His criticism has not escaped the notice of other judges.
A national association of federal judges called for an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss growing concerns about political intervention, though that meeting was postponed. A new date hasn't been set.
Philadelphia U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, who heads the independent Federal Judges Association, said the group “could not wait” until its spring conference to address its concerns.
After Trump took Jackson to task on Twitter, District of Columbia Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell rallied to her side.
“The Judges of this Court base their sentencing decisions on careful consideration of the actual record in the case before them; the applicable sentencing guidelines and statutory factors; the submissions of the parties, the Probation Office and victims; and their own judgment and experience," Howell said in a written statement. "Public criticism or pressure is not a factor.”
Tuesday, Trump commuted the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted in connection with attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat Obama vacated in 2008.
Trump's description of the sentence issued by U.S. District Judge James Zagel, appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan: "ridiculous."
Contributing: Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer; Kristine Phillips, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DOJ's reversal in Roger Stone sentencing worries prosecutors, judges
