Constitutionally ‘Stoned’

The recipe for the collapse of a Republic is the gleeful interference of the chief executive in the criminal justice system. That the public has grown numb to Donald Trump’s tweets of triumph as his attorney general recommends a lighter sentence to his one-time “fixer” Roger Stone shows how far the rot has set into our government and society.

Justice Department lawyers are prohibited from press conferences, so the four prosecutors on the case spoke in the only fashion allowed to career civil servants – resignation. Exhausted shrugs met muted outrage when the president tweeted in reply, “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!”

The best Louisiana senator, John Kennedy, could manage, “I think this is a situation where [Trump’s] tweet [on Roger Stone] was very problematic.”

When Trump continued, “Now it looks like the fore person in the jury, in the Roger Stone case, had significant bias. Add that to everything else, and this is not looking good for the ‘Justice’ Department,” deafening silence ensued from his fellow Republicans.

The concept of checks and balances on executive power evaporated in the wake of the impeachment. “Etat, c’est moi,” became the new monarchical governmental philosophy of Trump. Louis XIV might have been proud of having one’s attorney general do the king’s bidding, but the founders, who placed so much more importance on an independent legal system, would be appalled. So should we be.

Form matters in a constitutional system. The irony is that the president’s actions were so unnecessary, so driven by the egotistical pride of proving that if an action can be done, therefore it should. Instead, Trump could have let Roger Stone off in a fashion allowed by the constitution to his office. Had the president’s former advisor received the prosecutorial recommended nine years (not necessarily a given), Trump could have simply pardoned or commuted the sentence.

Immoral perhaps, yet a legitimate executive power. However, one only to be employed after the courts have spoken. For if the president can order William Barr to have his prosecutors stand down for his friends, could not the president also instruct his chief law enforcement officer to prosecute his enemies?

We are reminded, ironically of a Russian tsar who was presented with evidence by a junior officer that one of his favorite generals was war profiteering. The Emperor noted that the Colonel in question must have exceeded his authority to obtain these secret documents, and according to the law, should face imprisonment.

When the stammering officer asked why his minor infraction in the pursuit of truth and justice would be prosecuted, and the favored general’s crimes ignored, the tsar replied, “For my friends, Everything! For my enemies, The Law!”

This article originally published in the February 17, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.