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It was expected that Democrats would be up in arms over the news that the Justice Department retracted and rewrote Roger Stones sentencing recommendation memo, but once again I find myself astonished by the rank hypocrisy of Democrats.

But before I get into that, I think its worth mentioning that the prosecution of Stone and, quite frankly, the sentencing, was excessive. The prosecutors, many of whom were part of the Russian collusion hoax investigation team of Mueller, literally ordered a pre-dawn raid on Stone's home in Florida, complete with a CNN detail ready to cover the event for the country to watch as it unfolded. The recommendations for sentencing were completely absurd. Violent criminals, including rapists, get less time than what they were recommending for Stone. In due time, I am sure that will become clear, but, once again, I feel compelled to bring to light that the Democrats outrage over this is just the latest example of their hypocrisy because for eight years under Barack Obama we saw actual corrupt manipulation of the justice system in favor of Barack Obamas allies.

Under Obama and his radical attorneys general, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, the Justice Department became a hotbed of political favoritism, pretty much from day one.

I have picked five examples of Obama's allies being protected from justice in various ways by his administration that Democrats didnt give a hoot about and when you read them, youll understand why.

You may remember images and video from Election Day 2008, with members of the New Black Panther Party standing outside a Philadelphia polling place wearing military garb making racial remarks and discouraging people from voting. A voter intimidation case against the New Black Panthers began weeks before Obama took office. It was an open-and-shut case, and the New Black Panthers didnt even show up in court to defend themselves, assuring the governments victory in the case. Then in May 2009, the case was inexplicably dropped by Attorney General Eric Holder.

By the summer of 2010, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights declared there was evidence of possible unequal administration of justice by the Justice Department in the New Black Panther Party case. It was quite clear that under Obama and Holder, civil rights cases against minorities discriminating against whites were being systematically ignored. Holder still denied there was a racial motivation during a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in March 2011, justifying the decision not to prosecute the NBPP by bizarrely citing the roadblocks African Americans endured when trying to vote in the South during the era of Jim Crow laws.

Attorney General Eric Holder took part in a scandalous, incompetent gun-running project known as Fast and Furious from 2009 to 2011, and did everything in his power to protect his boss, Barack Obama, during that investigation. In return for his steadfast loyalty, Obama protected Holder, who was aggressively stonewalling the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee investigation into Fast and Furious. Obamas asserting of executive privilege was not only to protect himself but also to protect Holder ahead of the Oversight Committees vote to declare Holder in contempt of Congress for withholding documents from the committee. Ultimately it didnt save Holder from being held in contempt of Congress by a bipartisan vote.

In 2012, just days before the November election, ICE agents were ready to arrest an illegal immigrant and registered sex offender, but were ordered by the Department of Homeland Security to wait until after the election. Why? The suspect was a volunteer intern for Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and there would be significant interest from Congress and news organizations about the arrest. Menendez was seen as vulnerable in the 2012 election, and the delay of the arrest saved him from a potentially politically damaging scandal on the eve of voting. All the while letting a sexual offender avoid justice for six weeks.

In 2009, Barack Obama illegally fired Gerald Walpin, the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service. Walpins only crime was that he was investigating Obamas friend and donor, Kevin Johnson. Johnson had misused federal grant money for AmeriCorps by funneling it to his personal nonprofit group, paying for political activity, and using it to pay hush money to underage girls hed sexually abused. When Walpin recommended charges against Johnson, Obama, in violation of federal law, fired him.

An investigation by Congress into the illegal firing was met with stonewalling by the Obama White House, and the withholding of documents. The Obama White House also deliberately misled Congress about the reasons for the firing.

Its hard to think of anyone who has managed to avoid accountability more than Hillary Clinton, and her response to the Stone sentencing story was her latest example of a lack of self-awareness.

It was not all that long ago that Hillary Clinton was the heir-apparent to Barack Obama, and Obama wasnt going to let her criminal behavior get in the way of her winning the election and keeping his legacy intact. Thanks to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey, Hillary was never going to be punished for her illegal private server and mishandling of classified and top-secret information that would have seen anyone else indicted. In fact, FBI Director James Comey had drafted her exoneration letter before Hillary had even been interviewed by the FBI. And through the entire process, Barack Obama wanted to be kept in the loop, according to text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.

Hillary Clinton benefited from Barack Obama and his Justice Department doing everything they could to protect her, and she has the nerve to criticize the Trump administration for reducing the excessive sentencing of Roger Stone? Seriously?

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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama's Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis

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5 Times Barack Obama Protected His Allies from Justice and Democrats Didn't Care | News and Politics - PJ Media

Scott got a lot off his chest in his post called Jeff Sessions: The Open Questions, a critique of my post called Its John Boltons turn. Thats good. However, it will take more than one post for me to respond.

This first post will focus on matters related to Jeff Sessions and what I take to be the demonizing of him.

Scott opens by saying that demonizing anyone other than demons would be wrong by definition. Not really.

The definition of demonize I had in mind is to portray (someone or something) as evil or as worthy of contempt or blame. If someone deserves contempt or blame to a significant degree, it is not wrong to demonize him.

President Trump has portrayed Jeff Sessions as worthy of contempt or blame. He has vilified the man. Sessions does not deserve this treatment.

The title of Scotts post suggests as much. If there are open questions about Sessions, he should not be portrayed as worthy of contempt or major blame until the questions are answered satisfactorily.

What are Scotts open questions? In his email to me about the post he critiques, Scott said that if Sessions couldnt ethically perform his job in the Russia investigation, he shouldnt have taken the job or [should have] resigned.

I hadnt addressed this point in my post. To fill the gap, I addressed it here.

I showed that Sessions couldnt have known in mid-November 2016, when he agreed to be attorney general, that his role would include overseeing an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. I also discussed in some detail why, later on, it wouldnt have made good sense for Sessions to withdraw from consideration or resign.

Scott doesnt address these arguments except to say they are well informed, but speculative. It isnt possible to consider the wisdom of a decision in this case Sessionss decision not to withdraw of resign without considering what the likely consequences of making a different decision would have been. And such consideration necessarily involves a certain amount of speculation.

I take Scotts characterization of my analysis as well informed, coupled with the fact that he doesnt challenge any of it, as confirmation of the reasonableness my speculation and of my conclusion that Sessions doesnt deserve to be attacked for taking the Attorney General job and for not resigning.

This was the only criticism of Sessions that Scott leveled in his email to me. But now he levels an additional one. He doubts that Sessions needed to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. (To be clear, I dont understand Scott to be demonizing Sessions for this decision.)

Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation because that investigation centered on the Trump 2016 campaign, and Sessions was a central figure in the campaign. In addition, Sessions had met members of the Russian government a few times while the campaign was in progress.

I think Sessions made the right decision as a matter of legal ethics. No one should oversee the investigation of an enterprise he was intimately involved in, especially when its possible that his testimony will be sought in the investigation.

This, I take it, is why Attorney General William Barr says that Sessions probably made the right decision when he recused himself. One can disagree with Barr, of course. However, given the high regard in which Scott and I hold the current AG, it seems unfair to portray Sessions with contempt or blame for making a decision Barr says was probably right.

Barrs view is supported by the fact that the legal ethics advisers at the Department of Justice counseled Sessions to recuse himself. In an email to Scott, Andy McCarthy said he doesnt doubt that the advice came from the same people who were signing off on the preposterous Carter Page FISA warrants.

I dont know who at the DOJ performed the legal analysis regarding the Sessions recusal matter, and from Andys careful phrasing it seems he doesnt know either. I dont assume that the legal analysis of the ethical issue was performed by someone who approved the Page FISA warrant.

In any case, I think the ethics advice was sound. If an Obama attorney general had worked on an Obama election campaign that was under investigation (whether or not the investigation was labeled criminal), and that attorney general remained in charge of the investigation, Im pretty sure conservatives would have screamed bloody murder. And justifiably so.

Sessions was right not to put himself in that conflicted position. And those who, like the president, attacked him for it were wrong to do so, in my view.

Finally, Scott takes issue with my statement that Trump wanted Sessions to be his consigliere. But Trump expected Sessions to protect him (and I assume wants Barr to do the same, seemingly a source of mounting frustration for Barr). Thats my understanding of what a consigliere does, albeit typically in relation to a mafia boss. (I hope readers understood that I was not accusing Trump of being a mafia boss.)

According to reports, Trump complained to Don McGahn, the White House counsel, that he needed his attorney general to protect him the way Robert Kennedy protected JFK and Eric Holder protected Obama. Trump asked McGahn, Wheres my Roy Cohn?

Bobby Kennedy and Cohn were consigliere-like, in my view. Holder described himself as Obamas wingman. He didnt fit the literal definition of a wingman, but the description was apt nonetheless. Trumps view of his attorney generals role doesnt fit the literal definition of a consigliere, but I think the description is apt nonetheless.

Admittedly, my choice of words was harsh. But it was based on my view that Trump has (or at least had) a terribly misguided view of the attorney generals proper role. That role is not to protect the president, it is to enforce federal law.

Trumps view of the AGs role as his protector, if it persists, risks making the Justice Department an instrument for the advancement of the presidents personal interests. It risks making our justice system about the rule of a man, not the rule of law.

Jeff Sessions had the correct view of the attorney generals role. If anything, he should be praised, not demonized, for that.

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Regarding Jeff Sessions: A reply to Scott Johnson - Power Line

"Do you really trust these clowns?" So asks a new billboard going up on New York City's Times Square this weekend. The video broadcast on the billboard was exclusively provided to PJ Media. The video ad mocks leaders in the Democratic Party by putting their heads on the bodies of clowns at a circus.

The "DC Clowns" circus show features "Crazy Joe Biden," "Bernie Socialist Sanders," "Nervous Nancy Pelosi," "Shifty Adam Schiff," "Wacky Elizabeth Warren," "Lil Jerry Nadler," and "Clueless Chuck Schumer."

The Committee to Defend the President, a super PAC supporting President Donald Trump, launched the ad as part of a $40,000 ad buy.

"From the Democrats making fools of themselves on the campaign trail to those who foolishly sought to impeach President Trump, the Democratic Party is now a circus of epic proportions," PAC Chairman Ted Harvey told PJ Media. "The Committee to Defend the President will continue to expose their foolishness and support President Trump, as he prepares to serve Americans for a second term."

While it may seem undignified to mock the Democrats in this fashion, many of the figures in this ad have indeed beclowned themselves many times over.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for instance, rushed the impeachment of President Donald Trump, insisting that the House of Representatives had no time to defend its subpoenas against the president's executive privilege in court. This led the House to add a second impeachment article "obstruction of Congress." Law professor Jonathan Turley famously called impeaching the president on these grounds an "abuse of power." Yet weeks later when the House had passed the articles of impeachment, the very same Nancy Pelosi refused to send them over to the Senate, delaying the very process she insisted must be rushed to prevent Trump from threatening the 2020 election.

In a similar vein, House impeachment managersReps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) argued that Trump's executive privilege was an impeachable offense when they had vociferously defended former President Barack Obama's executive privilege after Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress for refusing documents in the "Fast & Furious" scandal.

Joe Biden has beclowned himself over and over and over on the campaign trail, from his infamous Silver Star story fabrication to his calling a New Hampshire voter a "lying dog-faced pony soldier." He began the New Hampshire Democratic debate last Friday by conceding he would likely lose, and then he shamefully skipped town on the night of the primary, leaving his campaign staff and volunteers in the lurch as he rushed down to South Carolina. I'm not sure "crazy" is a sufficiently offensive moniker.

As for Elizabeth Warren, it is certainly both "wacky" and clownish to present yourself as Native American for years, even getting touted by Harvard and published in a Cherokee cookbook, and then to insist you never received "any benefit" from the ruse whatsoever. Warren's pie-in-the-sky "plans" for government takeovers of whole industries also received much-deserved derision last year.

Bernie Sanders may be the greatest clown of all. He's more eloquent than Joe Biden and far more authentic than Elizabeth Warren, but his victory would represent the Soviets finally winning the Cold War against the U.S. While he firmly rejects the label now, he oncedidn't mind being called a communist. He infamously honeymooned in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and worked with various Marxist political parties during his time as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. He endorsed Socialist Workers Party candidates for president in the 1980s when that party was pointing to Soviet-aligned countries like Nicaragua and Cuba as inspirations for U.S. policy. His support for this party prompted an FBI investigation.

Democrats are terrified of having Bernie at the top of the ticket, but a Sanders nomination would be a fitting capstone for the Democratic Party's increasing clownishness.

While Americans should be terrified of this party, Jack Dunphy pointed out that it's healthy to have a laugh at some of the absurdity.

Watch the ad below.

Tyler O'Neil is the author ofMaking Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at@Tyler2ONeil.

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Times Square Billboard Mocks Clowns in the Democratic Party - PJ Media

Despite violence breaking out at a vigil for the slain rapper, Nipsey Hussle, local residents will carry on his movement of community investment. USA TODAY

A grand jury has indictedEric Holder for the shooting death ofGrammy-nominated rapperNipsey Hussle, theLos Angeles County District Attorneys Office announced.

Holder was indicted May 9 on one count of murder, two counts each of attempted murder and assault with a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon,spokesman Greg Risling said in a statement Tuesday, after the indictment was unsealed.

It includes allegations that Holder "personally used a handgun and caused great bodily injury and death."

Prosecutors previously charged Holderwith the same counts, but the indictment means they can skip a preliminary hearing and head to trial.

Nipsey Hussle murder investigation: Everything we know so far

Eric Ronald Holder Jr., 29, who is accused of killing of rapper Nipsey Hussle, appeared for arraignment in Los Angeles with attorney Christopher Darden on April 4, 2019. Darden has since withdrawn from the case, citing death threats.(Photo: Pool, Getty Images)

The 29-year-old suspect pleaded not guilty to all charges Tuesday and is due back in court for a pretrial hearing in June. His bail has been set at$6.53 million.

Holder faces life in state prison if convicted.

He's accused of gunning downHussle,33, whose real name was Ermias Asghedom, outside of the rapper's clothing store in South Los Angeles on March 31. Two others were wounded during the incident.

Holder was arrested April 2 after a nearly 48-hour manhunt.

Related:DJ Khaled releases Nipsey Hussle's final music video 'Higher'

Authorities say the man suspected of fatally shooting rapper Nipsey Hussle has been arrested. Police say 29-year-old Eric Holder was captured Tuesday in Bellflower, near Los Angeles. (April 3) AP Entertainment

Earlier this month, Holder'shigh-profile lawyer, Christopher Darden, filed a motion to withdraw from the case, citing death threats. Holder will now be represented by an attorney in the public defenders office, according to thedistrict attorney's office.

Contributing: Maria Puente, The Associated Press

Related:Christopher Darden wants out as lawyer for Nipsey Hussle accused shooter Eric Holder

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Government prosecutor Joycelyn Ballantine filed an unexpected motion Sunday in the case against Michael Flynn for the express purpose of seeking to protect Flynns former defense team.

Yes, its true and in the prosecutors own words: Government prosecutors said in their filing they want to make certain and clear that counsel [Covington & Burling] may take the necessary steps to vindicate their public reputation by addressing and defending against the defendants claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, and equally to vindicate the integrity of this Courts previous proceedings, the government asks this court to issue the attached proposed order.

Really? Now the US Attorney for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice are in the business of protecting and working to protect the public reputation of Covington & Burlinga well-known international law firm based in DC? Do the new United States Attorney Timothy Shea and Attorney General William Barr know that federal prosecutorswho had already identified a serious conflict of interest held by Covington in the Flynn caseare subjecting Flynn to more proceedings now to protect Covington?

Supplemental Motion filed by Sidney Powell describing the conflict of interest regarding Covington & Burling along with exhibits.

Flynn motion to dismiss for egregious government misconduct and in the interest of Justice

A serious conflict of interestindisputable because it was recognized by both the government and Covington by November 1, 2017well before Flynn entered a guilty plea or even made a proffer to the prosecutors is one of the main reasons Flynns lawyer Sidney Powell filed to withdraw his guilty plea several weeks ago. She noted in her filing then that his former lawyers failed toadvise him timely, fully or properly of the firms conflict of interest in his case regarding theForeign Agents Registration Actform it filed on his behalf, and by doing so betrayed Mr. Flynn.

In fact, there was no dispute that Covington had a serious conflict and it was so serious that the government raised it with Covington twice, beginning November 1, 2019, as reported.

A spokesman for Covington & Burlingstated in an email to SaraACarter.com after Powell filed her motion to withdraw Flynns guilty plea thatUnder the bar rules, we are limited in our ability to respond publicly even to allegations of this nature, absent the clients consent or a court order.

Well, with government prosecutors fighting on their behalf, Covington & Burling can be rest assured they are not alone.

Prosecutors also argued in Sundays filing that Flynns former attorneys must now testify after he claimed that they failed to appropriately handle his case. The prosecutors asked Sullivanto confirm by court order that Flynn had waived his attorney-client privileges in his communications with his lawyers, then-Robert Kelner, Brian Smith and Steven Anthony.

The government requests that the Court suspend the current briefing schedule concerning the defendants [motion] until such time as the government has been able to confer with Covington regarding the information it seeks, stated the prosecutors. While Covington has indicated a willingness to comply with this request, it has understandably declined to do so in the absence of a Court order confirming the waiver of attorney-client privilege. Obviously, the government and Covington have already been communicating. One wonders who even drafted the motion and how much help Covington provided on it?

Flynn is like David and the DOJ prosecutors are his Goliathadd now the formal and clear opposition of his own former lawyersthe powerful firm headed by former Attorney General Eric Holder and former head of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.

Powell argues that point and others in her motion to withdraw his plea, in which she skillfully lays out how the government threatened to drag in his son, Michael Flynn Jr., during former Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation, if he didnt plead guilty to the one count of lying to the FBI and how, once the Special Prosecutors focused on FARA liability, Covington was either going to be a defendant or had to subscribe to the Flynn-lied-to-his-lawyers theory of the prosecution.

Again, its another way prosecutors can squeeze defendants into a guilty plea.

After the prosecutions Sunday filing, however, Judge Emmet T. Sullivan indefinitely delayed Flynns sentencing hearing, making his Flynns Feb. 27 sentencing unlikely.The government prosecutors said Flynns request to withdraw his guilty plea may require testimony from his former lawyers.

Powell told this reporter: The government, at a minimum, should agree to allow Flynn to withdraw his plea. Both the prosecution and Covington recognized the seriousness of the firms conflict of interest. The only person who didnt understand it all was General Flynn himself. As Flynns filing indicates, Covington did not timely or fully or accurately advise him of the situation. When he did finally make it clear to (Covington) that he must consult other counsel, he contacted me. The resulting change in his defense proves the point.

But to put this into perspective one only needs to remember the sequence of events that led to Flynns guilty plea. He pled guilty to one count of lying to the two FBI agents who interviewed him only a few days into his new job as National Security Advisor in the White House regarding the content of his phone conversation with formerRussian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak, while Flynn was on vacation in late December in the Dominican Republic.

Unbelievably, Flynn, who has given more than 33 years of his life serving his country in the military is in the fight for his future, family and reputation. But what about the two agents who originally interviewed him at the White House. Those agents,FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, are now front and center of an ongoing criminal probe by Barr appointed prosecutor John Durham. Durham is investigating the extraordinary malfeasance in FBIs handling the Russia probe.

Strzok has since been fired for his actions in the FBIs probe into the President Donald Trumps 2016 campaign and Pientka, who is still with the FBI, was highly criticized in Inspector General Michael Horowitzs recent report for failing to verify the information contained in the now debunked dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. Flynn has also raised serious issues about all of the exculpatory evidence that was hidden from him by Special Counsel prosecutor Brandon Van Grack who has just been dropped from the pleadings in this case.

Even fired former FBI Director James Comey admitted that the agents didnt believe Flynn had lied to them during their interview with him and now Powell cant get her hands on Flynns first interview with those agentsknown as a 302 report. The prosecutors have told Powell that they do not possess the first 302 report and the FBI refuses to give it up despite repeated requests.

Comey also laughed about how he along with his FBI cohorts set up Flynn up for the interview that took place at the White House on January, 24, 2017. Comey described to MSNBCs Nicolle Wallace that he sent Strzok and Pientka to the White House in a way that would not have occurred under another president. He said the interviewwasnt set up through the White House counsels office, as common practice, but arranged directly with Flynn. He admitted that it was something I probably wouldnt have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized administration, Comey boasted as the audience erupted in laughter.

More and more, it becomes obvious through Flynns case the egregious behavior of government prosecutors that limits a defendants ability to have the necessary tools to defend themselves before the court.

Its time for DOJ to create a Conviction Integrity Review Unitlike some state prosecutors have formedto review serious claims that prosecutors have hidden exculpatory evidence and engaged in other misconduct and strong-armed tactics to secure convictions at any cost.

As Powell argued in a recent motion stating that the prosecution has shown abject bad faith in pure retaliation against Mr. Flynn since he retained new counsel. This can only be because with new, unconflicted counsel, Mr. Flynn refused to lie for the prosecution.

Powell is referring to the case of Flynns former business partner Bijan Rafiekian, who worked with him at his former security firm the Flynn Intel Group, as previously reported. Last summer, prosecutor Van Grack and others in the Eastern District of Virginia suddenly demanded that Flynn admit to allegations that he said was not true. In Powells motion, she attached the redlined document emailed by Mr. Van Grack that proved her point.

Justice is not a game, and there should be no room for such gamesmanship in the Department of Justice, stated Powell in her filing. She noted that the Justice Department is attempting torewrite history and criticized the prosecutors withdrawal of its recommendation that Flynn be sentenced to probation and by suggesting he had not been forthcoming or cooperative. She also argued that the governments retraction of its prior recommendation and withdrawal of a prior motion placed the government in breach of Flynns plea agreement and warrants withdrawal of his plea by itself.

Michael T. Flynn is innocent, she noted. Mr. Flynn has cooperated with the government in good faith for two years. He gave the prosecution his full cooperation.

Now it remains to be seen what happens from here and when, and if, the scales of liberty will eventually be balanced. Will the Department actually seek Justice now? Flynn certainly hasnt seen any yet. Ms. Ballantines most recent motion makes no mention of seeking the truth. Remarkably, its primary point is to protect Covington & Burling.

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DOJ Sought Continuance Of Flynn Case To Vindicate Public Reputation Of His Former Legal Team - Sara A. Carter