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babylonsister

(171,059 posts) Mon Feb 17, 2020, 07:42 PM Feb 2020

Fed. judges' assn. calls emergency meeting after DOJ intervenes in case of Trump ally Roger Stone

Federal judges' association calls emergency meeting after DOJ intervenes in case of Trump ally Roger Stone
Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – A national association of federal judges has called an emergency meeting Tuesday to address growing concerns about the intervention of Justice Department officials and President Donald Trump in politically sensitive cases, the group’s president said Monday.

Philadelphia U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, who heads the independent Federal Judges Association, said the group “could not wait” until its spring conference to weigh in on a deepening crisis that has enveloped the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr.

“There are plenty of issues that we are concerned about,” Rufe told USA TODAY. “We’ll talk all of this through.”

snip//

The unusual concern voiced by the judges’ group comes in the wake of an equally unusual protest. More than 2,000 former Justice Department officials called on Barr to resign Sunday, claiming his handling of the Stone case "openly and repeatedly flouted" the principle of equal justice.

"Although there are times when political leadership appropriately weighs in on individual prosecutions, it is unheard of for the department’s top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the president, as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case," the letter reads.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/17/roger-stone-sentence-judges-worried-political-interference/4788155002/?fbclid=IwAR2XnAj0p-DK1LeCFdiy7k-owYNzZg2z2pCATQev1tJi-fOndm-oejNBu5M