Former FBI Director James Comey took to Twitter to take a cheeky dig at Donald Trump who tweeted that there was no ‘fairness’ in the sentencing of Roger Stone after he lied to Congress.
On Thursday, Comey shared a GIF from the video of Mariah Carey’s 2003 hit ‘Obsessed’ that simply showed the singer asking: ‘Why are you obsessed with me?’
Earlier in the day, Trump accused Comey of leaking classified information and lying to Congress, and compared it to Stone’s 40-month prison sentence handed down on Thursday.
He said: ‘They say Roger Stone lied to Congress. Oh, I see, but so did Comey (and he also leaked classified information, for which almost everyone, other than Crooked Hillary Clinton, goes to jail for a long time), and so did Andy McCabe, who also lied to the FBI! FAIRNESS?’
Since Trump firing Comey on May 9, 2017, he has mentioned Comey in at least 189 tweets, according to Newsweek.
Comey shared a gif from the video of Mariah Carey’s 2003 hit ‘Obsessed’ that simply showed the singer asking: ‘Why are you obsessed with me?’
The ousted director was responding to an earlier tweet from President Trump that attempted to bring up his misdeeds in comparison to Stone, who lied to Congres
Donald Trump said he wasn’t going to pardon Roger Stone for now after Stone was sentenced to 44 months in prison for lying to Congress
The former FBI director was in charge at the start of the investigation that looked into whether there was any correspondence between the Trump campaign and Russians attempting to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump denounced the investigation from its inception as a ‘witch hunt,’ claiming it had partisan roots.
On Thursday, Trump said he had no plans to pardon his long time adviser but declared that Stone would be cleared during a retrial.
‘Roger has a very good chance of exoneration in my opinion,’ the president said at Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, where he delivered the commencement speech for the Hope for Prisoners graduating class.
He attacked the Stone issue head-on as speculation swirled he would issue a pardon to his longtime adviser. Stone was spared immediate incarceration while U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson decides whether or not to grant his request for a retrial.
In the 12 minutes he talked about the Stone case, President Trump bemoaned how Stone was treated unfairly while Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted for her private email server.
The president did say he thinks Roger Stone was treated unfairly and will be cleared in a retrial, which Stone’s lawyers have requested
The president had issued a rash of presidential pardons this week, leading to speculation Stone would be the next person to receive one.
But instead Trump said he was watching how the legal process played out.
‘I am following this very closely, and I want to see it play out to its fullest,’ the president said.
‘I’m not going to do anything in terms of the great powers bestowed upon a president of the United States. I want the process to play out. I think that is the best thing to do. Because I would love to see Roger exonerated, and I would love to see it happen. Because I personally think that he was treated very unfairly,’ Trump said of his longtime adviser.
He complained Stone was treated unfairly compared to Clinton, who Trump has long targeted. ‘Lock her up’ was his signature campaign line during the 2016 election, which his supporters shouted while Trump complained about his then-Democratic rival’s use of a private email server.
Trump returned to that complaint Thursday while he waxed on about Stone’s case.
‘Hillary Clinton leaked more classified documents than any human being, I believe in the history of the United States of America,’ Trump said. ‘And she deleted 33,000 emails.’
President Trump complained Roger Stone was treated unfairly compared to Hillary Clinton
Trump has long complained that Hillary Clinton wasn’t prosecuted for using a private email server when she was secretary of state
President Trump spoke to the ‘Hope for Prisoners’ graduation class in Las Vegas; above he poses with one of the graduates
He added that Clinton said the ’emails were about her yoga classes and her exercising and her daughter’s wedding. 33,000 about her daughter’s wedding – that must have been the greatest wedding of all time. And nothing happened to her.’
Clinton, while secretary of state for President Barack Obama, used a private email server for official government business.
Then-FBI director James Comey, after an official investigation, said Clinton had been ‘extremely careless’ in her use of the server but recommended that no charges be filed against her. Trump railed against her as ‘Crooked Hillary’ during their presidential contest.
Trump reissued his complaints about Comey, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and ‘dirty cops.’
‘We had a lot of dirty cops. The FBI is phenomenal. I love the FBI. But the people at the top are dirty cops,’ he said.
‘I know Roger, but a lot of people know Roger. Everybody sort of knows Roger. What happened to him is unbelievable. They say he lied but other people lied to. Just to mention, Comey lied, McCabe lied, Lisa Page lied, her lover, Peter Strzok, lied. You don’t know who these people are? Just trust me,’ he said.
Stone was convicted last fall of lying to lawmakers over his efforts to procure stolen Democratic Party emails from WikiLeaks in 2016 to boost Trump’s chances of becoming President. He was sentenced Thursday.
But Trump denied Stone worked for his 2016 presidential campaign.
Free to go – for now: Roger Stone is escorted from the Washington D.C. federal courthouse after his sentencing. He remains gagged from speaking to the press
‘Roger was never involved in the Trump campaign for president. He was not involved. I think early on long before I announced he may have done a little consulting work or something, but he was not involved when I ran for president,’ the president said during his remarks.
Trump then pivoted to attack the jury forewoman in Stone’s trial, Tomeka Hart, who the president accused of being an anti-Trumper.
Stone’s lawyers pointed to some social media posts written by Hart on Facebook as one of the reasons they requested a retrial for Stone. Hart posted her appreciation for the four federal prosecutors who resigned after Attorney General Bill Barr interfered in the Stone case.
Trump said Hart was ‘tainted.’
‘The woman who was in charge of the jury is totally tainted when you take a look. How can you have a person like this? She was an anti-Trump activist,’ he said.
The prosecutors in Stone’s case resigned after the Justice Department intervened and lowered the sentencing recommendation for Stone.
Hart praised their work and outed herself as the jury forewoman in Stone’s trial in the aftermath.
‘It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors. They acted with the utmost intelligence, integrity, and respect for our system of justice,’ she wrote on Facebook.
Hart, it further emerged, had unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2012 and had participated in anti-Trump rallies and protests.
She had frequently denounced Trump on social media, calling the President and his supporters racists, and posted emojis of hearts and fist pumps after finding Stone guilty last November.
Hart had also re-tweeted a post by pundit Bakari Sellers dismissing Stone’s claims that the FBI used excessive force when they arrested him at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida home in January 2019.
Trump disparaged Hart during his remarks to the graduating class of prisoners.
‘This is a woman who was an anti-Trump person, totally. I don’t know if this is a fact. But she had a horrible social media accounts, the things that she said on the accounts were unbelievable. She did not reveal that when she was chosen. And she is I guess, from what I hear a very strong woman and dominant person, so she can get people to do whatever she wants.’
He complained this meant Stone couldn’t get a fair trial.
‘Does this undermine our fair system of justice? How can you have a person like this? Did she delete her social account? And when Roger was determined by the same jury to be guilty before the judge issued a sentence, and he was determined to be guilty, and she started going a little wild. She was very happy,’ he said.
He argued this was a strong reason for the judge in the case to declare a retrial.
‘So if this woman was tainted, I hope that the judge will find that she was tainted,’ Trump said.
Off – but not to prison: Roger Stone left court apparently cheerful after he was sentenced to 40 months, not the nine years prosecutors wanted, but not the probation he had asked for himself
‘It is not fair,’ he added. ‘I am here to make a fair system.’
‘We will watch the process and watch it very closely. And at some point I will make a determination. But Roger Stone and everybody has to be treated fairly. And this has not been a fair process,’ Trump said.
At Stone’s sentencing hearing on Thursday in Washington D.C., U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a stunning rebuke not just of Stone but of the president himself, saying the prosecution was not brought by ‘political enemies,’ and that there was no ‘anti-Trump cabal’ at the hear of the case.
‘He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president, he was prosecuted for covering up for the president,’ she said.
‘There was nothing unfair, phony or disgraceful about the investigation or the prosecution.’
Not over: Roger Stone’s case is not at an end because he has applied for a retrial, which the judge is considering. She went ahead with the sentencing and will rule later on his call for a fresh hearing
Crowd: Roger Stone walked through a crowd of waiting photographers and reporters as he left the court
It was unknown whether Berman Jackson was aware of his latest intervention but it came amid a case roiled by politics and mounting speculation Stone will be pardoned.
Even before she spoke, prosecutors staged their own revolt against the president calling the case ‘righteous’ and demanding a lengthy prison sentence despite their initial call for nine years being over-ruled by Attorney General Bill Barr in one of the main acts of an unfolding constitutional crisis.
Stone, 67, stood in silence as Jackson told a federal courtroom Washington, D.C. that he should spend 40 months -three years and four months – behind bars.
She had savaged him in his sentencing remarks – and rebuked the president himself, possibly for his tweet this morning which was during the first part of her hearing.
‘This case did not arise because Roger Stone was being prosecuted by his political enemies,’ Berman Jackson said.
She said Stone told ‘flat out lies,’ and that his conviction had nothing to do with whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
He was guilty of a ‘corrupt, unlawful,’ campaign to stop his lies being exposed when he threatened Randy Credico, who he named as his ‘go-between’ to Julian Assange, to stop Credico revealing the truth, that there was another go-between.
Stone was also guilty of withholding texts and emails from Congress, prompting Berman Jackson to again lash out at the president.
Lightning rod: Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson will sentence Roger Stone in a case which has caused a crisis to engulf Bill Barr who pleaded with Donald Trump to let him do his job and stop the tweeting about his Department of Justice
Grinning: Roger Stone had shown no emotion as he was sentenced, and left the court building with a smile on his face