Here’s something to keep an eye on: The judge in the Roger Stone criminal wants to speak to both sides in a conference call scheduled for Tuesday.
From the federal records:
An on-the-record scheduling telephone conference call is set for February 18, 2020 at 11:00 AM in Courtroom 3 before Judge Amy Berman Jackson. In a separate email from the Deputy Clerk, counsel for the parties will be supplied with both the dial in telephone number and pass code to give them access to the call.
The conference call was scheduled on Sunday. The reason behind this is unclear from the records, but um, there’s been a lot of activity in the case as of late. Prosecutors originally recommended seven-to-nine years in prison for Stone, a 67-year-old Trump campaign surrogate convicted of witness tampering, lying to Congress, and obstruction. President Donald Trump complained about it on Twitter. The Department of Justice, as an institution, walked back the sentencing recommendation. The prosecutors on the case withdrew.
It remains to be seen what U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wants to discuss. Preet Bharara, a former U.S. Attorney who served in the Obama administration and was famously fired by Trump, suggested that the court will look into why the prosecutors left.
I hope and expect this means the judge will probe why the four prosecutors felt the need to withdraw from the Stone case.
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) February 17, 2020
Officials, including Attorney General William Barr, insist that Trump’s outburst had nothing to do with the case. Critics are skeptical, at best.
DOJ’s top spokesperson is on the record saying the decision to override the sentencing recommendations was made last night, before Trump’s tweet: https://t.co/aM0Ge9Ka3j
— Betsy Woodruff Swan (@woodruffbets) February 11, 2020
[Image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
