Yesterday, in his COVID rally, Trump was asked whether he was thinking of pardoning Paul Manafort or Roger Stone so they’re not exposed to coronavirus in prison.
I just tell you this. Roger Stone was treated very unfairly. Paul Manafort — the black book turned out to be a fraud — we learned that during the various last number of weeks and months, they had a black book that came out of Ukraine, turned out to be a fraud. Turned out to be a fraud — they convicted a man — turned out to be a fraud! General Flynn was a highly respected person, and it turned out to be a scam on him. The FBI said, he didn’t lie. And Mueller’s people wanted him to go to jail. So what am I gonna do? You’ll find out what I’m gonna do. I’m not gonna say what I’m gonna do. But I’ll tell you the whole thing turned out to be a scam and it turned out to be a disgrace to our country. It was a take-down of a duly elected president. And these people suffered greatly. General Flynn! I mean, what they did to him! And even the FBI said, and they had some — nobody bigger fan of the FBI than me at the level of the people that really matter. But the top of the FBI was scum. And what they did to General Flynn — and you know it and everybody knows it — was a disgrace.
Unsurprisingly, all of these claims are lies.
Roger Stone was treated unfairly, but because Billy Barr intervened to override a guidelines sentence. Barr himself said the prosecution was righteous.
The black book was not proven to be a fraud. More importantly, however, it wasn’t used in the Manafort prosecution. And he pled guilty to all the money laundering alleged.
But the Flynn claim is perhaps most ridiculous of all, because it obscures why Flynn faces prison time, absolving Fox News for the role it played.
Mueller’s people didn’t want prison time for Flynn (indeed, their sweetheart deal for him was probably one of the mistakes they made). They recommended probation when he was first set to be sentenced in December 2018.
And then Flynn stepped in it by insinuating he had been ambushed in an FBI interview he willfully took and believed to be friendly.
Then Flynn stepped in it again when he fired Rob Kelner and decided to renege on his promises to cooperate against Bijan Kian.
And then he stepped in it again by letting Sidney Powell convince him to withdraw his guilty plea, multiplying his lies under oath.
Flynn may yet avoid a prison sentence and if he gets one and if BOP actually makes him report during the coronavirus Trump likely will pardon him. But Trump will only be pardoning Flynn for his own stupidity that led him, at each stage of the game, to expose himself to more and more legal danger.