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Andy McCarthy, former U.S. Assistant Attorney, explains why calls for AG Bill Barr to resign over the Roger Stone case are
Amid backlash over the Department of Justice pushing to reduce Roger Stone’s recommended sentencing, Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy on Monday described the controversy surrounding the case as “nonsense.”
“This is just the silliest Washington controversy,” the former assistant U.S. attorney told, “Outnumbered Overtime.”
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“This is what nonsense this is: even the federal sentencing guidelines do not bind the judge, let alone a Justice Department recommendation about them,” McCarthy said.
“She’s only bound by the statutes that Stone was convicted on so she could give him zero years, she could give him 50 years, she could give him anything in between," he said, explaining that prosecutors and department senior officials issued “non-binding recommendations."
He emphasized that Judge Amy Berman Jackson can impose whatever sentence she feels is appropriate, regardless of how President Trump or Attorney General Bill Barr feel about the case.
McCarthy's comments came after more than 1,100 former Justice Department employees have signed an online petition urging Barr to resign and praising the four prosecutors who withdrew from the Stone case after what they perceived as interference from the White House, Politico reported.
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Signatures for the petition include recent Justice Department employees and some dating back to the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, according to the news outlet. The signatures were gathered by Protect Democracy, a nonprofit legal group that had also gathered signatures for a letter claiming Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report presented enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.
McCarthy said that federal judges are “experts in sentencing,” therefore do not need input from the Department of Justice on sentencing guidelines and sentencing law. McCarthy added that the judge also gets a guidelines calculation from the U.S. probation department and the defense lawyer.
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Considering those facts, McCarthy said that therefore there is nothing that the Justice Department has done that either binds the judge or informs the judge on the ongoing unfolding events in the case.
Last week, the Justice Department overruled its own prosecutors — who had recommended in a court filing that Stone be sentenced to as many as nine years in prison — and took the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it would seek. The department didn't offer an amended number. Barr has been under fire for the reversal.
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and Gregg Re contributed to this report.
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February 18, 2020 at 02:48AM
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Andy McCarthy: Why Roger Stone case is the 'silliest controversy' in DC - Fox News
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