After four prosecutors quit the Roger Stone case, the Justice Department batted back allegations it bent to Trump's will under Atty. Gen. William Barr.
that Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Trump, receive a stiff prison sentence.
“It’s a disaster,” said Mary McCord, who spent two decades as a federal prosecutor and was acting assistant attorney general for national security in 2016 and 2017. “The department has no credibility left.”Democrats will get their chance to question Atty. Gen. William Barr next month. The House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday that Barr, after a months-long standoff with the panel, had agreed to testify March 31.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, they argued, should take into account that Stone threatened the life of a witness and obstructed justice, boosting his guideline range to seven to nine years. At that point, the four prosecutors who won the Stone conviction, two of whom had previously worked on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, abruptly withdrew from the case. One resigned from the department.
Both sentencing filings were approved by Timothy Shea, the acting U.S. attorney, court papers show. Shea was appointed Jan. 30, taking over for Jessie Liu, who had left the position pending her nomination to a senior Treasury Department position.Trump on Tuesday withdrew Liu’s nomination. An associate of Liu’s said she believes Barr blamed her for the Stone debacle and “threw her under the bus with Trump.
Shea felt the recommendation was too harsh. So did Deputy Atty. Gen. Jeffrey Rosen and his staff, former and current prosecutors said.
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