(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
On Monday, federal prosecutors recommended that Roger Stone, a longtime confidant and informal advisor to Donald Trump, receive up to nine years in prison for obstructing a congressional investigation, witness tampering, and making false statements to federal investigators. On Tuesday, Trump took to Twitter to decry the “horrible” and “very unfair” treatment Stone was receiving. “Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” he said. Not long after, the Justice Department swatted the prosecutors’ recommendation aside, suggesting a much more lenient sentence for the president’s pal.
And that’s when all four of the prosecutors working on Stone’s case — Jonathan Kravis, Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, Adam C. Jed, and Michael J. Marando — decided they’d had enough. Three of the four prosecutors on the Stone case withdrew, and a fourth decided to quit his job outright. This is unheard of, according to the New York Times:
David Laufman, a former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence unit, said he could not recall another criminal case in which an entire team of prosecutors had resigned en masse, apparently to protest improper political interference.
“This is a ‘break glass in case of fire’ moment,” he said. “We have now seen the political leadership of the department, presumably acting on the president’s desires, reaching down into a criminal case to withdraw a reasoned sentencing recommendation to the court.”
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department claimed that Trump’s Twitter tantrum didn’t play a role in Stone’s new sentencing recommendation, and Trump reportedly said he hadn’t discussed the matter with the DOJ.
You know something has gone incredibly wrong at the Justice Department when lawyers of this ilk — some former Supreme Court clerks, all career prosecutors — feel the need to do something this bold. It used to be that DOJ attorneys didn’t have to check their ethics at the door. Now, we’re not so sure about that anymore.
Prosecutors Quit Roger Stone Case After Justice Dept. Intervenes on Sentencing [New York Times]
These Are the Roger Stone Prosecutors Who Quit the Case [New York Times]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.