Robert Mueller Pens Washington Post Op-Ed Slamming Stone’s Clemency

17 states sue Trump over international student rule

(From NewsHero issue 137 available here)

Robert Mueller (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

🦸‍♀️ — William Barr, for suggesting Trump not grant Stone clemency
🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️ — Robert Mueller
🦸‍♀️ — Lindsey Graham, for clearing the way for Mueller’s testimony
🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️ — Adam Schiff, critics of Trump getting Stone out of his prison time
🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️ — States suing Trump over student visa restrictions
🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️🦸‍♀️ — Voter rights advocates, mail-in ballot supporters

• An administration official told NBC News that Attorney General William Barr recommended against granting Stone clemency, and the Justice Department had nothing to do with Trump’s decision to commute his sentence.
  Just more from the “it wasn’t me” branch of the government.
• Robert Mueller wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, in which he says, Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so. “The jury ultimately convicted Stone of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness. Because his sentence has been commuted, he will not go to prison. But his conviction stands,” Mueller writes.
• Following the op-ed in the Post, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he will grant a request by Democrats to have former special counsel Robert Mueller testify about his investigation before the committee, reports CNN.
• House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff became the latest lawmaker to criticize Donald Trump for commuting Roger Stone’s prison sentence, Fox News reports. “I think anyone who cares about the rule of law in this country is nauseated by the fact that the president has commuted the sentence of someone who willfully lied to Congress, covered up for the president, intimidated witnesses, obstructed the investigation,” Schiff said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “It shouldn’t matter whether you’re Democrat or Republican. This should be offensive to you if you care about the rule of law.”
• Seventeen states and the District of Columbia on Monday sued to block the Trump administration from stripping foreign students of visas if their schools move to online classes during the pandemic, reports The Hill.
  “The Trump Administration didn’t even attempt to explain the basis for this senseless rule, which forces schools to choose between keeping their international students enrolled and protecting the health and safety of their campuses,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, whose office is leading the coalition of states suing the federal government.
• An NPR analysis has found that in the primary elections held so far this year, at least 65,000 absentee or mail-in ballots have been rejected because they arrived past the deadline, often through no fault of the voter.
  Charles Stewart, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies election administration, points out that those using mail-in voting for the first time — especially young, Black and Latino voters — are more likely to have their ballots rejected because of errors. “That’s the sort of thing that makes me wary about what’s going to happen in November when we get an even larger influx of people who haven’t voted, or haven’t voted by mail in the past,” he says.

(From NewsHero issue 137 available here)

Sources:

• Attorney General Barr told Trump he shouldn’t grant Roger Stone clemency — CNBC
• Opinion | Robert Mueller: Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so — The Washington Post
• Lindsey Graham says he will ask Mueller to testify before Senate Judiciary Committee — CNN
• Democrats and Republicans criticize Trump for commuting Roger Stone’s prison sentence — Fox News
• Lindsey Graham vows Mueller will testify after op-ed on Trump’s clemency for ally Roger Stone — Independent
• California sues Trump administration over student visa policy — Axios
• Thousands Of Mail-Voting Ballots Rejected For Arriving Late — NPR
• 17 states sue Trump administration over foreign students rule — The Hill