This testimony today should be very dramatic, as a former Mueller prosecutor is expected to talk about the pressure from the top to change sentencing recommendations for Trump pal Roger "I hardly know him" Stone. Via CNN:
(CNN) A deputy to former special counsel Robert Mueller plans to tell a congressional panel Wednesday that the "highest levels" of the Justice Department politicized the sentencing of President Donald Trump's longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone by pressuring the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia to ease up on his sentencing, according to written testimony the committee released Tuesday.
Aaron Zelinsky, a member of Mueller's team who prosecuted the Stone case, submitted written testimony charging that Stone was "being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the President."
"What I saw was the Department of Justice exerting significant pressure on the line prosecutors in the case to obscure the correct Sentencing Guidelines calculation to which Roger Stone was subject -- and to water down and in some cases outright distort the events that transpired in his trial and the criminal conduct that gave rise to his conviction," Zelinsky said in his written statement.Zelinsky, currently a prosecutor in the Maryland US Attorney's Office, is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday at a hearing on the politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr. Zelinsky is appearing alongside John Elias, a career staffer in DOJ's Antitrust Division who is accusing Barr of ordering investigations into 10 mergers of cannabis companies because he did not like the industry.
Statement by Aaron Zelinsky, prosecutor in the Roger Stone case: “I was told that the Acting US Attorney, Timothy Shea, was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of DOJ to cut Stone a break and (his) sentencing instructions to us were based on political considerations” pic.twitter.com/VRVVs7HrSa
— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) June 23, 2020
Zelinsky’s description of Roger Stone’s role in the 2016 campaign is worth reading. pic.twitter.com/eaqeADgBZC
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) June 23, 2020
