The Rule of Law

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

The man who likes to say, he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot somebody and he wouldn’t lose any voters, popped yet another cap in Lady Justice last night. (Despite boyish boasts, he does these things in the dark of Friday when he thinks no one will hear about it till Monday.) Donald Trump freed his criminal co-conspirator Roger Stone by presidential commutation of sentence.

No surprise there. Trump has pardoned twenty-five persons and commuted the sentences of eleven.

All but one of the pardons were of men: too many nasty women around to rate a bigger share of executive largesse. Almost none of them bothered to actually apply for clemency: friends in high places are so much cooler than boring old official channels.

Roger Stone was “prosecuted for covering up for the President” — those are the words of the sentencing judge. Stone knew the get-out-of-jail-free card was coming because Trump told him it was. On 4 June Trump tweeted his assurance to Stone that “He can sleep well at night.”

Stone is just the latest skid mark on this Presidency. Trump has pardoned war criminals and spies, and a sweet old unrepentantly racist sheriff. He pardoned a pal who wrote a glowing biography of — and maybe it’s just a coincidence — Trump. He pardoned people who didn’t do anything he hasn’t done: obstruction of justice, illegal campaign donations, improper use of government property, tax fraud, perjury.

He pardoned one guy just because he used to work for Fox News. Commuted the sentence of one gal ‘cause Kim Kardashian told him to (though even a man whose greatest academic achievement was to ace an Alzheimer’s test could see twenty-one years in prison was a tad excessive for a first-time nonviolent drug offense).

And there was the long-overdue pardon of black boxer Jack Johnson whose crime was to sleep with a white woman, though, like Frederick Douglass, Trump might have thought him a contemporary he might tap for a campaign donation.

Still, most of the folks Trump conveyed clemency upon were at least as deplorable as Hillary Clinton suggested any of his fans could be.

I wish he would stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue. A lot of us wish he would. In front of a Mack truck whose driver is busy polishing the perfect text.

Perfect in every way.