World Net Daily ... Unlike the mainstream media, which failed to provide one, a fair analysis of President Donald Trump's commutation of his longtime political adviser Roger Stone, convicted on seven felonious counts and sentenced to 40 months in prison, demands viewing from three perspectives. 

While the first is whether it is justified, also of import are two other telling perspectives – the motivation of those criticizing the move and the silence of those normally more vocal in their criticism.

 

 

Concerning justification, the scales of justice for Roger Stone were far, far removed from being level. He was immediately caught up in traversing a liberal minefield. 

The basis for the underlying investigation was a false narrative, emanating from the Steele Dossier – a document initiated at the request of Hillary Clinton to find dirt on Trump and later paid for by both her and the Democratic National Committee. The gist of the dossier was that Trump was colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election. 

A recent ruling in a British court that involved a lawsuit against the author of the Steele Dossier affirms that the report's ultimate client was Clinton's campaign.

 

Despite the dossier's obvious liberal bias, it was then given to a liberal, pro-Hillary deep state to investigate – with such bias being totally ignored. It allowed investigators to illegally obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. 

Even later, when Robert Mueller and an army of pro-Hillary investigators sought to turn the dossier's fiction into some form of fact, they were unable to do so, eventually finding the alleged collusion to be a hoax.

 

But the allegation provided a green light for an FBI investigation laying the framework for a Stone prosecution. When charges were ultimately brought against him, additional liberal influences derailed Stone's effort to avoid conviction. 

He was tried before a liberal Washington, D.C., jury and a liberal judge who denied him the opportunity to submit evidence Russia had not hacked a DNC server. And, only discovered after his conviction was the strong liberal bias of the jury's foreperson, who had made clear her prejudice against Stone on the internet. 

It came as no surprise then that Stone was convicted in November 2019 on seven counts. Despite the foreperson's clear prejudice, the defendant's request for a new trial was denied.

 

 

While so much going on in the world of politics today reflects a tribal mentality, it is those politicians who cross party lines whose motivations need analysis. Such is the case with Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who joined Democrats to criticize Trump's Stone commutation. He called the act one of "unprecedented, historic corruption." 

Romney was never one to support pardons or commutations. As governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), he was the first in modern history to deny every request for same. He had a blanket policy of not granting them, even rejecting a pardon for a decorated Iraq war veteran whose conviction at age 13 involved using a BB gun.

 

Quick to tell Romney he was wrong about the commutation being unprecedented was self-declared liberal legal expert Jonathan Turley. He pointed out President George H.W. Bush did something very similar to this in 1992 by commuting "the sentence of a person convicted of a jury of lying to shield that president" involved in the Iran-Contra incident.

 

On the Democratic side, however, there has unsurprisingly been tremendous criticism of Trump. 

Chief anti-Trump cheerleader and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasted no time condemning the president, calling it the day after the commutation was announced an "act of staggering corruption." To further convey her disdain, she proclaimed congressional action would be taken to rewrite the Constitution to rein in the president's ability to grant reprieves and pardons. 

This "concern" by Pelosi is hypocritical as revealed below.

 

Also vocal with their criticism of Trump has been members of the Deep State. They may well be concerned Stone received a commutation rather than a pardon.

Commutation leaves the underlying felony conviction on his record while negating the need to serve time. But this allows Stone to appeal the conviction, bringing in evidence of FBI illegalities and how Russian collusion was driven by politics, not fact.

 

 

It usually takes very little for the Democrats' 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to lambast Trump. Yet, she and husband Bill have been extremely quiet. This too should come as no surprise.

 

In 2001, two interesting events happened. 

First, Pelosi was elected as the House minority whip, second-in-command only to Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., the first woman in U.S. history to hold that post. 

But the second event, which should have triggered a response from both Gephardt and Pelosi, failed to do so. 

That event was President Bill Clinton's pardon of a very wealthy fugitive from justice, a guy by the name of Marc Rich, a pardon issued in the final minutes of his presidency so as to limit political fallout. It would become perhaps the most condemned official act of Clinton's political career.

 

Rich had made a fortune in oil, illegally dealing with Iraq, despite U.S. sanctions. When federal agents moved in to arrest Rich, he fled to Switzerland, owing $48 million in taxes. He was indicted in absentia, charged with 51 counts of tax fraud. 

Having done business with our enemy and with no redeeming reason for doing so, Rich was still pardoned for tax evasion by Clinton. 

Meanwhile, Rich's former wife, Denise, had become a major donor to the Democratic Party. She undoubtedly had worked her end to solicit a Clinton pardon, making substantial donations to both the Clinton Library and Hillary's Senate campaign. 

This was so "over the line" that even Clinton's fellow Democrats were outraged as former President Jimmy Carter, James Carville and Terry McAullife all characterized it as being "disgraceful."

 

The outcry triggered an investigation into the pardon, initiated by federal prosecutor Mary Jo White. The investigation took several years, during which time she was replaced.

It should come as no surprise that Clinton was found guilty of no wrongdoing since the agent replacing her was James Comey – later perhaps being "rewarded" by becoming FBI director.

 

Even more telling about Clinton's moral character was, while pardoning Rich for financial reasons, he apparently passed on pardoning another felon, an Edward Mezvinsky.

Mezvinsky, who later became Chelsea Clinton's father-in-law, was convicted of scamming about $10 million from investors.

 

Both Clinton and Barack Obama also pardoned terrorists, with the latter including on his list a traitor, Chelsea Manning.

 

No wonder neither the Clintons nor Obama have yet commented on Trump's Stone commutation. And Pelosi, who saw nothing wrong with the outrageous pardons of Clinton and Obama now claims she is offended by Trump's commutation.

 

Either "stoned" or stone-deaf, Democrats criticizing Roger Stone's commutation do so not on the basis of outrage but purely on the basis of party politics. They need to get over it.