“Friends of the president’s, accomplices of this president, they get off scot-free,” the California Democrat said.
House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff slammed President Donald Trump on Sunday, calling the president’s commutation of longtime confidant Roger Stone an affront to the rule of law.
“The president through this commutation is basically saying, if you lie for me, if you cover up for me, if you have my back, then I will make sure that you get a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Schiff said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week" with George Stephanopoulos.
“Other Americans, different standards. Friends of the president’s, accomplices of this president, they get off scot-free,” the California Democrat added.
Trump commuted Stone’s 40-month prison sentence on Friday, just days before Stone was set to head to prison. He had been convicted on seven felony counts including lying to Congress and witness intimidation in an effort to thwart investigations of Russia’s 2016 election interference.
The move was widely expected after the president repeatedly criticized his prosecution and sentence, but it nevertheless immediately drew outrage from Democrats in Congress, and even a pair of Republican senators rebuked the decision.
Schiff on Sunday asserted that those who care about the rule of law, as Trump professes to, are likely “nauseated” by Stone’s commutation. “This should be offensive to you if you care about the rule of law and you care about justice.”
In a statement Friday announcing Trump’s intervention in Stone’s case, the White House slammed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, from which Stone’s conviction stemmed, but did not explicitly mention that six of the seven felonies Stone was convicted of pertained solely to efforts to deceive Congress. The official explanation of the commutation also asserted that Stone would never have been prosecuted if Mueller had not been appointed.
The statement also played down the charges Stone faced, calling them “process-based,” and suggested they weren’t necessarily crimes at all. Instead, the White House argued, they were leveled “to manufacture the false impression of criminality lurking below the surface.”
But even Mueller, whose two-year investigation and the time since have been marked by radio silence in the face of criticism, broke his silence on Stone's commutation in an op-ed in The Washington Post on Saturday.
Still, for all of the outcry, Schiff did not appear enthusiastic about the prospect of impeaching Trump again, slamming members of the president’s party for remaining silent on the issue and contending that even former President Richard Nixon would not have been so bold and would have faced repercussions from his party.
“This is the distinction between now and Watergate. The Republicans at that time would not have stood for this, and Nixon understood that,” Schiff claimed. “But Donald Trump understands that he has these Republicans cowed, they won't stand up to him, they won't defend the rule of law.”
The two Republican senators who did speak out against the commutation, Mitt Romney of Utah and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, were rebuked late Saturday in a tweet from Trump calling them “RINO’s” — Republicans in name only.
Another prominent elected Republican and frequent Trump critic, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, also criticized the move.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Hogan called the appearance of Trump saving a close ally from prison problematic even as he acknowledged Trump’s clemency powers as president.
“That doesn't mean he should have” commuted Stone’s sentence, he argued. “And we've got a guy whose convicted of seven felonies, a couple months before an election, for the president to take this action, it’s certainly gonna hurt politically.”
