Will the Deep State Still Try to Prosecute Donald Trump？ w⧸ David Schoen
Episode Stats
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Summary
Pete Hegseth is a Fox News commentator and decorated combat veteran. To help break this down, host Roger Stone is joined by Mark Vazquez of the Illinois Business Review to discuss the latest in the ongoing saga surrounding Heg Seth's nomination to be the next Secretary of Defense.
Transcript
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The Stone Zone, with legendary Republican strategist and political icon and pundit Roger Stone.
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Stone has served as a senior campaign aide to three Republican presidents.
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He is a New York Times bestselling author and a longtime friend and advisor of President Donald Trump.
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As an outspoken libertarian, Stone has appeared on thousands of broadcasts, spoken at countless venues,
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and lectured before the prestigious Oxford Political Union and the Cambridge Union Society.
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Due to his four-plus decades in the political and cultural arena, Stone has become a pop culture icon.
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Welcome, I'm Roger Stone, and yes, you are back in the Stone Zone.
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Continued controversy of President Donald Trump's appointment of Pete Hegseth,
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the Fox News commentator and decorated combat veteran, to be Secretary of Defense.
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To help break this down, let me bring in my co-host for today,
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the Illinois Business Review founder, publisher, and editor, Mark Vargas.
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Well, Mark, you've got a lot of experience in Washington.
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You've seen this before, the feeding frenzy by the deep state and their allies in the fake news media.
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Personally, I think Pete Hegseth is fully qualified to be the Secretary of Defense.
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And the media has him withdrawing, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
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Here's a video of Pete Hegseth only this morning.
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You're not withdrawing your name from consideration, just to be clear.
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Well, that seems to be very contrary to the mainstream media narrative, which has Hegseth on the verge of withdrawing.
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It doesn't look to me like a guy who's withdrawing at all.
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No, and we're seeing how nasty this confirmation process is when you've got these never-Trumper senators like Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, totally ineffective senators.
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But, Roger, I used to work at the Pentagon, working for the Secretary of Defense as a civilian staffer on a special task force.
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So I'm very familiar with that building and how the Office of Secretary of Defense works.
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And he is, in fact, overqualified as a decorated combat veteran.
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But for the mainstream media to be bashing such a decorated and honorable veteran should be no surprise.
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And trying to claim that other individuals are going to be already taking his place certainly should be no surprise.
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Yeah, there was a particularly nasty hatchet piece in The New Yorker regarding Hegseth.
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And then things reported, but out of context, criticism of Hegseth by his own mother, which she withdrew literally years ago.
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I think this is symptomatic of what we're seeing.
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You raised an excellent point about these RINO senators, some of them not even RINOs.
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Yesterday afternoon, James Lankford, known in Oklahoma as the shrimp, the senior senator, and Mark Wayne Mullen, who seems to be more Trump-friendly,
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initially said that they wouldn't necessarily be voting for Kash Patel as the president's nominee for FBI director.
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I'm told that both of their offices were so flooded with phone calls from constituents, telling them that the president deserves his nominees.
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Well, by late afternoon, Mark Wayne Mullen, the junior senator, had changed his tune, said he would support Patel, who I saw your show the other day.
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Patel, I think, is one of the president's very best nominees so far.
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Speculation at the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that Governor Ron DeSantis will now replace the nominee, Pete Hegseth.
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I can tell you, Mark, this is entirely without foundation.
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Now, I do think it's important because people lose track.
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When he withdrew from the presidential race, Ron DeSantis has never endorsed Donald Trump for president.
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If you go back and look at his remarks, what he said was he had concluded that a majority of Republicans favored the renomination of Trump,
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and therefore he was withdrawing his candidacy.
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That is not exactly a full-throated endorsement.
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The truth of the matter is that Ron DeSantis owes his entire career to Donald Trump.
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He was an undistinguished and largely unknown congressman, running at about 8 percent in the polls when he was elected in 2018.
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His opponent, the state agriculture commissioner, Adam Putnam, a former congressman,
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had been endorsed by all 62 of the Republican county chairmen in Florida,
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every single Republican in both the state House and the state Senate,
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the all-powerful state Senate president, the very powerful Speaker of the House,
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every Republican member of Congress from Florida, with the exception of Matt Gaetz.
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He went on bended knee and begged Donald Trump for an endorsement.
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Trump evidently did not know that in 2016, when DeSantis was running for Congress
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and Trump was the Republican nominee for president, DeSantis refused to endorse Trump in that election,
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just because we're both on the Republican ticket does not mean I support Donald Trump.
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It was only after Trump was elected president that DeSantis saw his main chance to emerge as a defender of Trump in the Russian collusion hoax.
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I think this is probably the first time he ever came to Trump's attention.
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Then, at the behest of Matt Gaetz, Trump endorsed DeSantis.
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DeSantis went from 8 to 68 in the polls almost overnight, swept to the Republican nomination for governor.
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Because he had no grounding in state issues, he'd really been planning a U.S. Senate race.
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He brought on the extraordinarily capable Susie Wiles, who essentially put together very quickly a very efficient grassroots campaign for him,
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since his nomination, was a manifestation of his appearances on conservative talk radio and Fox.
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And, of course, he won by a very narrow 25,000 votes.
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And then, only because President Donald Trump changed his schedule three times to visit Florida in the final weeks of the 2018 campaign,
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So, my prediction to you today is that this is a fake news, that Ron DeSantis will not be appointed the secretary of defense.
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As long as Donald Trump is for him, that's who I'm for.
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Roger, I can tell you that in Illinois, it was the never-Trump base of the Illinois Republican Party that endorsed DeSantis over President Donald Trump,
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even though President Trump had a 40, nearly a 40-point advantage over DeSantis.
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It was these same officials like Richard Porter, the Republican National Committeeman, who said Donald Trump can't win independent voters in the swing states,
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and that MAGA supporters in their heart of hearts know that's just not possible.
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Another Republican, Illinois Republican Party leader, Jeannie Ives, also backed DeSantis over President Trump.
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So, I can tell you, in my firsthand experience, just here in Illinois alone, DeSantis' failed presidential campaign attracted all the never-Trumpers.
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And so, I couldn't imagine, I'm so glad with your analysis, I couldn't imagine that Ron DeSantis would be even considered for secretary of defense.
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And, Roger, I'd have to think that MAGA has a very good memory.
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Obviously, there's been a lot of speculation here in Florida that Governor DeSantis would appoint Laura Trump,
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who I think did an exceptional job as Republican National Co-Chairman, particularly in the area of election integrity,
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where this time the party was extremely well-prepared.
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For example, when there were irregularities in the voting in Butler, Pennsylvania,
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party lawyers sprung into action, won important judgments there to provide for a fair, honest, transparent election.
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I think that that is unlikely, but there are some wags in the press who are now saying,
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well, maybe there's a deal here, maybe DeSantis will agree to appoint Laura Trump to the seat being vacated by Senator Marco Rubio,
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and in return, Trump will make him secretary of defense.
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First of all, Donald Trump doesn't operate that way.
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Secondarily, I think candidly, Governor DeSantis has his own designs on that seat.
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Assuming that Senator Rubio resigns in January in order for his name to be sent to the Senate,
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where I think his confirmation as secretary of state is virtually certain,
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because he is resigning in the first three years of a six-year term,
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the special election for that seat would be held in November of 2026.
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That's at the end of Ron DeSantis' term as governor.
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He's barred from a third term by the state constitution.
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So I have been predicting, continue to predict,
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that the governor of Florida will put a placeholder into the Senate seat,
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someone who will not run, and seek that seat himself in order to position himself for another run for president in 2028,
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in which he will once again be ignominiously defeated.
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It's controversial, but we're going to show it to you anyway.
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That is back at a time, Mark, where I was taking a lot of abuse because I was telling people,
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DeSantis is going to run for president against the man who made him, Donald Trump.
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By the way, the people who say he's a great governor,
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they tend to be the people who don't live in Florida.
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The insurance on my car has tripled since Ron DeSantis has been governor.
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After DeSantis took $9.5 million from Florida Power and Light and their various subsidiaries
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for his presidential campaign, his regulators approved the greatest single increase in
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We also have a rising crime problem here in the country.
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So this idea that he's a great governor, I hear that from people in Ohio, people in Texas,
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people in Illinois, don't hear that so much from people here in Florida.
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Another interesting development I wanted to touch on, by the way, David Schoen, the president's,
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I think, most effective impeachment lawyer is going to join us momentarily for a discussion
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of what exactly is going on with Jack Smith and the cases filed against President Trump,
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also analyze the Georgia case and what we may be looking at from the New York courts.
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But it is interesting, I don't know if you saw this, Mark, that the president nominated
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a North Florida sheriff, Chad Chronister, to be the head of the DEA.
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And then it became clear that during the pandemic incident, the pandemic problem, that Chronister
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had gone into a church in Tampa and actually arrested Pastor Howard Rodney Brown in the middle
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of the services in that church, trying to enforce the COVID law.
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Christian backlash was so overwhelming yesterday that President Trump announced that he would
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This was an outrageous appointment to begin with.
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You know, Mark, by tradition, U.S. senators are only supposed to oppose a nominee for a
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cabinet position on the basis of some malfeasance, some crime, some other disqualifying factor.
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They're not supposed to oppose the president's nominees because they don't agree with their
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I think the president's nomination of Kash Patel, you had a great show here when you guest-hosted
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I think this is among the president's very best appointments.
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Watching acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, a man who never even served as a station chief
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for the FBI, say that Kash Patel is unqualified, this is laughable nonsense.
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But I think the most important message, I think, for those who are out there listening to us,
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particularly if you live in one of these states like Alaska or Maine, or Oklahoma for that matter,
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You go online, find their cell phone numbers, find their email addresses, be respectful, be polite,
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but make it very clear to your elected officials that you expect them to respect the mandate of the
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You expect them to respect the mandate of the voters, and they need to vote for President Donald
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Now, Elon Musk, who's a man worth a few bucks, has said that he will finance primary challenges
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to those Republican senators who do not support the president's nominees.
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Mark, you have a very good understanding of Republican primary voters and how they work.
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I think this is a very potent threat, don't you?
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And what happens when you've got these U.S. senators that have been in there for so long
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that they forget who they're really supposed to represent, their interests are no longer
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serving the people, it's serve me, serve us to serve us.
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And so it's no surprise that we're going to have these rhino senators oppose anything that
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President Trump, anyone that President Trump nominates.
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But here's what's very interesting, Roger, is that Rahm Emanuel gave a speech in Chicago
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yesterday, and he gave several media interviews.
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He was in town for Thanksgiving, and he had pretty harsh words for Democrats and for the
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And he said, you know, the Democratic Party used to be the party of the establishment.
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But what we saw on November 5th is that Donald Trump represents the anti-establishment,
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and that anti-establishment belief system is what the overwhelming majority of Americans
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And so this flies completely contrary to what these establishment U.S., Republican U.S.
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And so I think it's great that Elon Musk is going to target them, because the only way
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to make a difference is to hold them accountable, put up strong primary challengers, and get some
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funding behind them, and get them out of office.
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And when we come back, Mark and I are going to interview David Schoen, one of the premier
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criminal defense lawyers in the country, a man who very ably represented President Donald
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Trump in one of the two impeachments, a lawyer who has specialized in civil rights, civil liberties,
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ballot access issues, really, I think, one of the leading legal minds in the country.
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Folks, only last week was the 61st anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy in
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If this is a historical issue that interests you, if you still wonder who really killed JFK
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and why, well, let me recommend my book to you.
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It is The Man Who Killed Kennedy, The Case Against LBJ.
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It is both heavily documented and heavily footnoted.
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And in it, I make the case that JFK was murdered as a result of a, I hate this word, conspiracy
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that involved not only the Central Intelligence Agency, organized crime, major financial interests,
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the banks, big Texas oil, the FBI, and the Secret Service.
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You can get your copy of The Man Who Killed Kennedy.
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You can get a signed copy by going to themanwhokilledkennedy.com.
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Now, you could go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or some other multinational corporation that
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And if you do choose to go there, by the way, get the paperback because it has three additional
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But I would urge you to go to themanwhokilledkennedy.com.
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And yes, I will personalize it for you if you wish.
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So it's an excellent birthday or anniversary gift.
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Or if there's a history or political buff in your family and they're interested in this
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topic, which I think all Americans are still interested in, you can order your copy today.
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We have to keep the lights on here at The Stone Zone.
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Joining me now is one of the premier criminal defense attorneys in the country, David Schoen.
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He is a sole practitioner, specializes in complex criminal and civil matters, has made a specialty
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of civil rights, civil liberties, and ballot access issues.
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Very ably represented President Donald Trump in one of the two impeachments.
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He was the lawyer on the Senate floor who showed that epic video of Democrat after Democrat after
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Democrat calling for violence and insurrection.
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David Schoen joins both Mark Vargas and I now in The Stone Zone.
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I'm happy to tell you it was the highest-rating show we have ever had in the history of the show,
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both on Nielsen and also those listening online.
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We're going to cover some of the same ground here because the issues are very topical.
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Last week, I believe it was, perhaps it was the week before,
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the case against Donald Trump regarding the January 6th matter was dropped by special counsel
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Jack Smith, but they dropped it in such a legal way that the case could later be revived.
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Sure, and you're absolutely right, and I think what's particularly surprising
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is that that dismissal without prejudice, which means, as you say, they can bring it again,
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potentially, was done on consent with President Trump's lawyers.
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And my understanding is, you know, they felt they didn't want that additional battle,
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In other words, Jack Smith had to file a motion to dismiss.
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It's the binding Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted
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or be subjected to the criminal process in any regard.
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And that same goes for a president-elect under the Presidential Transition Act,
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Jack Smith's team, a memo written by Molly Gaston, another dubious member of the so-called
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I have a sanctions motion going against her for misleading a federal court.
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Yeah, so theoretically, Jack Smith, and certainly it's his intention based on the making sure
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that it was filed without prejudice, would like to bring this case again
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Another option would have been to try to hold it in abeyance.
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But the memo makes clear the Department of Justice policy reflected in a memo October 16, 2000,
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and again this year reaffirming it, piggybacking on a memo in 1973,
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it's clear that you cannot have these kinds of charges, criminal charges,
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hanging over the head of the institution of the presidency.
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So all the lawyers had to do was agree to the dismissal,
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but then fight the issue of whether it's with prejudice or without.
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There is a dangerous set of footnotes, 33 through 35, of the October 16, 2000 memo
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that suggests that maybe they could bring it again
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and that the statute of limitations would be told, frozen in time.
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So, you know, given the attacks that we've seen from these folks over and over and over again
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without merit, it's not hard to imagine that they would try that after four years.
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It would have been worth it to try to fight against that.
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Mark, you have a question for Counselor Schoen.
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You know, we're hearing, you know, the money wasted,
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$30 million is what I've been reading on Jack Smith's fake investigations of President Donald Trump.
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David, is there any mechanism in place to try and get that money back that was wasted?
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I think that money is gone and the American people were cheated,
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just as they've been cheated by all of the money spent on the Mueller investigation,
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which, you know, Rogers certainly knows very well.
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There was no basis for ever appointing special counsel in that case,
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let alone having it run by someone like Andrew Weissman,
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the single most ethically bankrupt prosecutor, in my opinion, that I've ever gone up against.
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Unfortunately, Merrick Garland, who, frankly, I had a case with when he was a judge.
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He turned out to be nothing more than a political hack, I'm very sorry to say.
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And he really proved that point, by the way, if you didn't believe it beforehand,
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when he claimed executive privilege allowed him to withhold the video of the Biden-Her interview.
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There's no basis for executive privilege to apply to that whatsoever.
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I would suggest to you, the Democratic Party doesn't think they were wasted
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more attacks against Donald Trump that, frankly, were not successful.
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Yeah, in that particular matter, it occurs to me there is indeed a precedence.
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When the existence of the White House recordings of President Richard Nixon became known,
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Nixon moved in the courts claiming that those could not be released
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because they were protected by executive privilege.
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The Supreme Court ruled, I think, almost unanimously against him
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in the course of the tapes were released, which ultimately brought down his presidency.
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I'm not sure why the same principle would not apply here.
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The idea that this recording by the special counsel of President Joe Biden
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was protected by executive privilege seems to be,
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would not stand up on the basis of that precedent, but then a non-lawyer.
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But you're 100% right, Roger, and even more so.
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There was no way in which Joe Biden thought he was speaking to anyone in a privileged manner.
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He was being interviewed by a prosecutor looking to bring charges against him.
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Here's another question, which I really hadn't focused on until our radio interview last Sunday.
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As you know, Judge Cannon in Florida, in the 11th Circuit, dismissed the charges against Donald Trump
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regarding the so-called documents case by claiming that the appointment of Jack Smith was unconstitutional.
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She based that, based on my reading of her ruling, on the fact that Smith had never been confirmed by the U.S. Senate
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to have these sweeping prosecutorial powers, that there is no provision in law for a special counsel.
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There's no budgeting to pay for what was a multimillion-dollar investigation.
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And lastly, that no member of the executive branch can be unfireable by the chief executive.
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That matter went to the 11th Circuit, where it was challenged by Jack Smith, and everybody
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presumed it would ultimately go to the Supreme Court.
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Now, while the case against the president has been dropped, the case against the two gentlemen charged as co-conspirators with him
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And presumably, their lawyers, Stanley Woodward, a very able lawyer, represents one of them,
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will raise this question, or the question will continue to be raised in the 11th Circuit.
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And therefore, it would seem to me, regardless of how the circuit ultimately rules, I'm not
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certain how that comes out, this still could end up before the Supreme Court.
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And the whole question of the constitutionality of Smith's appointment, and therefore Robert
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Mueller's appointment, could yet appear before the Supreme Court.
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Yeah, but I wish when you would give the disclaimer that you're not a lawyer, you would explain that
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what you mean is, you know, more than 99.9% of the lawyers out there.
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I mean, look, I think as a practical matter, you will see, Jack Smith has resigned already.
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I think you will see the case dismissed against all of them.
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I think the current Justice Department will come in and do it.
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Because now the Trump administration will have a license to appoint a special counsel based on
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You know, an interesting twist on this, by the way, as you may well know, Hunter Biden's lawyer
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filed a motion to dismiss one of the prosecutions against him based on this theory that the
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appointment of the special counsel, Mr. Weiss, was unconstitutional.
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He has a tougher road to hoe there, actually, because Weiss had been a U.S. attorney.
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But still, the argument may well have prevailed.
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But I think the case will be dismissed as a practical matter.
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But theoretically, yes, it could end up before the United States Supreme Court as to those
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remaining defendants, because the constitutionality of the appointment of the prosecutor who brought
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the case against them, Jack Smith, would still be a live legal issue.
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David, I mean, President Trump has been harassed for years, costing his businesses billions
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of dollars, the character assassination, the money that he's had to personally spend on
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Is there anything that President Trump could do legally to sort of fire back a counter lawsuit
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for this harassment where Jack Smith can just say at the flip of a switch, OK, I'm filing
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motions, investigations are over, pretend this never happened, just kidding.
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Is there any legal mechanism that President Trump could use to fire back and push back
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on these sorts of these targeted legal harassment cases?
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Yeah, theoretically, there is a mechanism, especially if you could show the government's claims against
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I think, you know, he may just well want to move on, although he's, you know, proven to be somewhat
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But, you know, that would also mean going all through the discovery process.
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And part of the reason we want these things to be over is because they are a distraction
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And, you know, this would mean potentially taking testimony from him and all of that.
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I'm not sure it would prevail in this case, and I'm not sure that it's worth it as a practical
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You know, that's easy to say because I'm not the person who's been under attack mercilessly,
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not just for the last four years, but for eight years.
00:31:47.820
It started, you know, with the Mueller commission, as you well know.
00:31:50.640
And that was part of their strategy is Jerry Nadler famously said once, we can't rely on
00:31:57.340
And so they try all of these extraneous methods and at taxpayer expense.
00:32:05.720
You have a shadow team of prosecutors, Norm Eisen, Donya Perry, Joyce Vance, Andrew Weissman
00:32:12.000
and others will make up these model prosecution memos.
00:32:18.480
And fortunately, the President Trump, the election went his way.
00:32:22.920
The American people, I believe, are fair minded.
00:32:25.180
And they were sick and fed up with this lawfare.
00:32:29.800
Let's switch, if we may, to the big news item, which transpired between the time you were
00:32:41.960
Now, this is kind of sensitive to me because people continue to go online and say, well,
00:32:47.120
Roger Stone and his wife evaded $2.3 million in taxes, but he was not prosecuted.
00:32:56.140
It proves that Hunter was politically prosecuted.
00:33:00.260
There are a number of substantial differences here.
00:33:02.320
First, I reported every penny of income to the IRS, and I accurately pointed all of my assets.
00:33:10.360
They brought a civil case against me simply based on my inability to pay.
00:33:14.540
I do owe the IRS $2 million, of which 75% is interest and penalties.
00:33:22.960
And this, by the way, are for my 2006 taxes because I'm current for every year from 2006 forward.
00:33:31.400
Also, every year since 2007, all 12 months a year, I have made payments to the IRS without
00:33:38.740
ever missing a payment or even being late with the payment.
00:33:43.260
And those payments over time have gone up depending on how well I'm doing, trying to make a living.
00:33:51.340
They've also gone down because of the Mueller investigation, which left my wife and I virtually
00:34:15.320
But when Hunter Biden's lawyers raised this question at trial, saying, well, Your Honor,
00:34:20.940
Roger Stone and his wife evaded, we evaded nothing.
00:34:24.680
And frankly, I'll probably be paying the IRS until the rest of my life.
00:34:28.880
Now, normally, in the offer and compromise system, you would be able to negotiate some
00:34:45.680
That's why these taxes would have extinguished.
00:34:49.680
And that's why we ultimately settled the matter.
00:34:53.820
But when Hunter Biden's lawyers brought this up in court in his case, the judge says, we
00:35:01.660
This is the difference between apples and oranges.
00:35:09.720
I resent the idea that we got some special break.
00:35:17.540
Again, one quarter of the amount that I owe is actually past due tax.
00:35:22.680
The rest of it, almost all interest in penalties.
00:35:27.180
Sorry, gents, but I had to get that off my chest.
00:35:32.200
Why do you think they backdated Hunter Biden's pardon all the way back to 2014 during the period
00:35:42.780
Well, I think why they backdated it is to protect Joe Biden.
00:35:48.680
I think it's to protect him with respect to the, and certainly Hunter Biden, with respect
00:35:55.080
Remember, President Trump was impeached the first time around simply for asking for an
00:35:59.500
investigation, not a prosecution, an investigation of the dealings between Hunter Biden, Joe Biden,
00:36:05.500
and the Ukraine, and that getting rid of that special prosecutor with the Burisma case,
00:36:11.280
So this matter, I think the only reason it goes back that far is to try to protect for this matter.
00:36:19.760
I think it could backfire because Hunter Biden no longer has a Fifth Amendment right with respect
00:36:27.420
He's going to have to testify about Joe Biden's role in that matter if he's called upon to testify.
00:36:35.020
There are also potentially legal issues surrounding the validity of this pardon.
00:36:40.440
Before I get to that, I would say to you, just to piggyback on what you said about the apples
00:36:45.000
and oranges, you may well have seen that the federal judge in the tax case expressed outrage
00:36:50.320
in an order yesterday at the suggestion that there was unfair treatment, biased treatment
00:36:55.580
against Hunter Biden in the tax prosecution, to which, of course, you know, he pled guilty
00:37:02.960
That judge expressed outrage at the way Joe Biden handled the thing.
00:37:06.720
But what's also interesting about the validity of this broad, nonspecific pardon for crimes committed
00:37:14.280
or which may have been committed, so unknown crimes, meaning, quite frankly, that, you know,
00:37:20.900
as of November 30th, if Hunter Biden sold 10 kilos of heroin, as I have said before,
00:37:27.780
he's given a pardon for that for many federal charges, as long as it was before December
00:37:33.240
It's an 11-year, 10-year, 11-month broad pardon.
00:37:38.460
So some writers from, let's say, the Brookings Institute, for example, were Trump haters.
00:37:43.480
During the Trump or after the Trump administration and before the Trump administration, when they
00:37:48.580
saw him coming in, wrote articles talking about how he might Trump, President Trump, might
00:37:52.520
abuse the impeachment process, and there's a suggestion that a pardon which is done for
00:38:00.140
the purpose and with the intent in mind of protecting the president and his co-conspirators
00:38:05.000
might be an invalid pardon, drawing on early debates in the Constitution and so on.
00:38:12.500
And the other is whether it's valid to give a broad, nonspecific pardon to crimes that we
00:38:22.020
But, you know, obviously, he gave a dozen interviews and so did his minions, and it
00:38:27.400
He believes in the justice system to come out with this kind of statement that he did,
00:38:31.520
the double standard, all of the things that have happened to Trump, he now claims have
00:38:34.960
happened to him, that the Justice Department has attacked him.
00:38:37.740
So in that sense, he supports President Trump, that it's a politically motivated Justice Department.
00:38:42.340
But, you know, he campaigned on calling President Trump convicted felon, which he's not.
00:38:46.480
There's never been any judgment entered in that case.
00:38:51.740
And now, you know, we see this very interesting article yesterday, by the way, to get a sense
00:38:56.020
of Hunter Biden by former mistress of his, who outlines the details, the drug use and all
00:39:05.560
But it's offensive that after, you know, suing people over the laptop and accusing the agents
00:39:11.140
of lying and misleading and so on, that now we're supposed to feel some sort of empathy
00:39:22.420
Kind of interesting that Senator Joe Biden was the sponsor of the bill that provides the harsh
00:39:28.340
mandatory penalties for possession of a firearm while you're on drugs, which he is now, of
00:39:37.780
course, as you know, hundreds of thousands of African-Americans and other poor people have
00:39:45.820
But he's just pardoned his son for that very infraction.
00:39:50.080
I also saw another legal analysis that said that if there was an investigation, let's say,
00:39:55.660
into payments that Joe Biden or members of his family took during the time that he was
00:40:01.080
vice president, and therefore during a time in which he had no presidential immunity, that
00:40:06.580
Hunter Biden would have no choice if he were called to testify.
00:40:09.920
Because he's accepted this pardon, he would not be able to use a Fifth Amendment defense.
00:40:19.400
And he could be charged with perjury or contempt if he refuses to.
00:40:23.260
Now, that's the downside of this kind of pardon.
00:40:26.740
And again, you know, those who didn't like President Trump wrote article after article
00:40:31.260
warning that, boy, it might be a good thing if he gives a full pardon to so-and-so,
00:40:38.840
I don't know if the House is inclined to go forward with inquiries about President Biden or not,
00:40:46.720
And I would warn this also, which is something I've argued vehemently against during the second
00:40:51.560
The Democratic Party's theory, the House managers put this in their brief, in the impeachment
00:40:56.480
brief, is that any former president can be impeached from time immemorial.
00:41:01.640
They could impeach Thomas Jefferson for holding slaves or any former president.
00:41:08.320
So Joe Biden is vulnerable to that, depending on if the House intends to make further inquiry,
00:41:14.420
or maybe they just want to move forward and let President Trump have his positive agenda to get
00:41:25.940
I don't know if you gentlemen saw this, but the trust fund baby congressman from Manhattan,
00:41:30.780
Dan Goldman, on CNN yesterday, said that Roger Stone blackmailed Donald Trump into giving him a pardon.
00:41:40.180
David, you represented me in the sentencing portion of my trial.
00:41:44.040
There is no evidence to support that whatsoever.
00:41:50.920
But unfortunately, both of them hide behind their congressional immunity.
00:42:01.800
In fact, after BuzzFeed sued the Justice Department to ultimately force them to disgorge
00:42:09.760
the last remaining redacted section of Robert Mueller's final report, he admitted that he'd found
00:42:18.180
no Russian collusion, no WikiLeaks collaboration on my part.
00:42:22.620
And he goes on to say that even if he had found such evidence, which he didn't,
00:42:30.340
This idea that members of Congress can vilify private citizens, say anything they want,
00:42:36.180
and that they have no recourse because of their congressional immunity is particularly obnoxious.
00:42:42.040
So I, and this is, the story about this today is very simple.
00:42:46.180
Congressman Goldman, waive your congressional immunity.
00:42:54.840
I don't think we'll be hearing anything more about that from Congressman Goldman.
00:43:05.360
There's zero basis to it, less than zero basis.
00:43:08.240
And you wouldn't still command the respect that you do with the administration and the
00:43:12.940
friendship and all of that if there were any truth whatsoever to that.
00:43:19.540
And maybe there's an exception to the speech or debate clause, depending on the forum,
00:43:24.560
But anyway, it's not worth your time to go after.
00:43:28.160
It is interesting to me that, of course, after I was pardoned, Andrew Weissman, who you have
00:43:35.600
correctly identified as the most corrupt prosecutor in U.S. history, said Stone can still be grabbed,
00:43:42.720
dragged before a grand jury now to testify what he knows about Trump.
00:43:46.680
With all due respect, Mr. Weissman, you had three years to bring me for the grand jury.
00:43:52.860
You conducted this investigation in secret, but constantly leaking it as a pressure tactic.
00:43:59.860
I could have been called to the grand jury at any time.
00:44:03.260
But if I were compelled to testify, I would have nothing to say.
00:44:07.760
I know of no misconduct whatsoever by Donald Trump.
00:44:13.500
There was no coordination with WikiLeaks or any other crime that I'm aware of.
00:44:20.820
People understand the purpose was to pressure me to testify falsely against the president,
00:44:29.040
I thank God that the president was able to see what was going on here,
00:44:33.340
that this was a baseless political persecution.
00:44:36.860
By the way, my testimony before the House Intelligence Committee was voluntary.
00:44:40.580
And for you to violate the False Statements Act, not only must your statement be willful,
00:44:46.720
it must be material, meaning it had to hide some underlying crime.
00:44:52.260
But Mr. Mueller could never identify any other underlying crime because there was none.
00:44:59.160
Those who say that Trump, now that he's in office, that he wants retribution, that he wants revenge,
00:45:10.140
I think what he wants is a recalibration, a rebalancing of the scales of justice.
00:45:19.300
John Brennan, the CIA director, went before the U.S. Senate and lied under oath about him spying on a Senate committee
00:45:27.200
that was investigating his illegal use of torture, but he wasn't prosecuted.
00:45:32.700
James Comey lied under oath multiple times before the Congress regarding material matters.
00:45:42.100
Hillary Clinton, of all people, she lied under oath to Congress repeatedly, but she was never prosecuted.
00:45:53.260
I think it's about a criminal justice system that is based in the rule of law.
00:46:00.280
I saw an interview with Weissman the other day in which he said he wasn't worried about his own prosecution
00:46:05.580
because that would be decided by grand juries and by judges as if there is no evidence of malfeasance
00:46:16.900
Now, David, since he and his colleagues loved writing memos to the Justice Department outlining
00:46:23.020
the alleged crimes of Donald Trump, maybe you should take pen to paper and send the Justice Department
00:46:28.880
a memo regarding the alleged crimes of one Andrew Weissman, because they go all the way back to his days
00:46:35.120
as a prosecutor in Brooklyn in which he covered up mob murders by Sammy the Bull.
00:46:40.620
And then, of course, when he suppressed exculpatory evidence and had other misconduct in the Enron case,
00:46:49.400
in the case against Arthur Anderson, in the case against Merrill Lynch.
00:46:53.380
He also famously, when the cell phones of the Mueller prosecutors were subpoenaed by Special Counsel John Durham,
00:47:07.060
There we have two systems of justice here in the country.
00:47:11.320
Mark, let me give you, I just want to interrupt one second.
00:47:13.900
Let me give you one example so your viewers and listeners know just how far back this goes
00:47:22.620
Andrew Weissman, back in the 90s, was a prosecutor in a mob case in which a corrupt FBI agent
00:47:28.780
was later charged with murders on behalf of the mob he had picked aside in the Colombo War and so on.
00:47:34.320
Of all of the prosecutors in the case, Chief Judge Sifton singled out one, Andrew Weissman,
00:47:40.120
for a suggestion that he should be taken to the bar for his, what he called,
00:47:43.480
myopic view of his ethical obligations and discovery obligations.
00:47:47.700
The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District at that time intervened,
00:47:50.820
wrote a letter to the judge asking him to remove Weissman's name from the order,
00:47:59.360
I've never heard of anything like that in my life,
00:48:01.780
and Weissman took it clearly as license to do what he has done since then.
00:48:05.740
Yeah, it is, his public comments are kind of beyond belief,
00:48:12.420
but he and his friend Norm Eisen seemed to be very, very upset about something.
00:48:18.720
Now, I remember very specifically, Jake Sullivan was well aware of the fact
00:48:23.880
that the claim that Donald Trump had a computer terminal at Trump Tower
00:48:31.140
and that he told Hillary Clinton that she could go ahead and say that publicly,
00:48:34.460
he knew that was false at the time, yet he has paid no penalty for that at all.
00:48:43.060
they enlisted the services of former intelligence officers
00:48:46.600
who we had held up as credible leaders in the intelligence community
00:48:50.140
to say that the laptop was part of a Russian hoax
00:48:54.000
and Russian intelligence effort and all of that.
00:49:00.100
And when you say President Trump now wants to, not vengeance,
00:49:03.860
but wants to sort of right the ship, you know, that's what's required.
00:49:09.240
And you mentioned that Hillary Clinton got a pass.
00:49:11.240
Your viewers and listeners should know that Robert Mueller was working for the law firm
00:49:15.760
that represented Hillary Clinton, and a member of his staff was her personal attorney.
00:49:19.960
Yeah, that's, by the way, the same woman who was the chief prosecutor in my case.
00:49:27.040
When Robert Mueller was brought before the House, he actually said he didn't know that.
00:49:30.780
He was unaware of the fact that his law firm had represented Hillary Clinton.
00:49:37.880
Every prosecutor in my case had previously worked for the Clintons in another incarnation,
00:49:44.720
But we expected them to be unbiased prosecutors.
00:49:49.320
Mark, your final thoughts on this legal issue, and then we'll get, let David go,
00:49:57.460
You know what, David, it's laughable that Joe Biden now is claiming a selective,
00:50:04.200
But I just want to ask you just one quick question.
00:50:06.120
You know, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said that these uncontrolled prosecutors
00:50:10.520
are a threat to the separation of powers, as brilliant as our founding fathers were.
00:50:14.960
They never envisioned these out-of-control prosecutors and special counsels to have this
00:50:22.120
Is there anything we could do in the Trump administration in having control of both chambers?
00:50:25.900
Is there any language that we could put together or any mechanisms in place to at least rein this
00:50:34.860
You know, one of the great justices of all time, Robert Jackson, wrote a very important article,
00:50:38.960
became a speech about the danger of the rogue prosecutor.
00:50:43.200
I think that what Congress can do with the prosecutors is to really impose greater sanctions
00:50:51.880
Literally, I've had a sanctions motion pending for now maybe two years against these folks,
00:50:57.460
J.P. Cooney, Molly Gaston, and another woman from that public integrity section,
00:51:02.780
for literally lying to a federal judge to get a lawyer's email records and so on.
00:51:07.940
There have to be more teeth, more of a disincentive from prosecutors for overreaching.
00:51:13.120
We've seen too many cases now in which that's really ruined lives and so on.
00:51:18.240
We're going to see now, as this thing, by the way, pans out in Georgia, since Fannie Willis,
00:51:23.060
apparently the office lied and said there were no communications with the House January 6th
00:51:27.860
Committee, Benny Thompson, or with Jack Smith, and Jim Jordan came up with a letter from 2021
00:51:33.480
in which Fannie Lewis asked for assistance from Benny Thompson.
00:51:37.800
We're going to see how that plays out now in terms of, you know, rogue prosecutors.
00:51:48.900
I guess on that final note, David, will the Georgia case ultimately be dismissed, in your opinion?
00:51:58.800
The prosecutor may try to hold it in abeyance, but for the same reasons underlying the Justice
00:52:03.140
Department memo, all of the distractions that it causes, separation of powers issue,
00:52:07.860
the supremacy clause issue, and so on, supremacy clause issue, it has to be dismissed, finished with.
00:52:14.760
It's even a simpler case than the New York case, and it ought to be done now.
00:52:19.120
Listen, I'm glad they're getting this other information, meanwhile, and showing that the
00:52:29.080
I guess that leads to one other final question, and that is, we still have pending the Alvin
00:52:34.740
Bragg case, the so-called hush money case in New York, which the president has, I think,
00:52:42.780
As I understand it, he cannot appeal the case until he's sentenced, and sentencing has been
00:52:50.480
This is another case that I think just personally ought to be dismissed, but how do you think
00:52:58.140
I'm afraid, though, knowing Judge Merchant, as I do, that he's going to go, remember, the
00:53:02.020
prosecution in that case now has said, well, okay, let's hold it in abeyance during the
00:53:06.360
four years, have it hanging over the president's head, and stop it now, hold it in abeyance.
00:53:11.400
On Monday, this past Monday, President Trump's lawyers filed a motion to dismiss, recounting
00:53:17.500
some of the previous arguments, but the main focus is to be on the election immunity, the
00:53:22.380
immunity that arises from him being now president-elect and soon to be the sitting president.
00:53:27.120
I think that Judge Merchant, given his record in the past, will probably go with the prosecution,
00:53:33.700
At that point, it is 100% true that the underlying conviction can't be appealed until there's
00:53:39.880
Judgment isn't entered until there's a sentencing.
00:53:41.760
But I believe there can be interlocutory appeals of the immunity rulings in the case, for the
00:53:47.260
case to be dismissed and eventually could be taken to federal court over it, may end up
00:53:52.200
Or, President Trump could agree to waive his immunity, get sentenced, and then appeal the
00:53:57.700
I worry about any implications for that for any other claim of immunity, but there are
00:54:04.040
I'm not positive that Judge Merchant will do the right thing for now, but eventually that
00:54:13.420
Let me thank our guest, David Schoen, criminal justice, pardon me, criminal defense lawyer
00:54:19.260
par excellence, one of the guys I go to for the very best legal analysis in the country.
00:54:25.020
As I said, our show on 77 WABC last weekend, the highest rating show I've had since President
00:54:32.900
He's the only one who beat your ratings, David.
00:54:35.160
We're very proud to call you a friend and to have you on the show.
00:54:41.880
All right, Mark, let's talk for a moment about the Illinois Review.
00:54:45.960
Where can people go to follow some of your great independent journalism?
00:54:51.920
Well, on Facebook, Illinois Review, on X, Illinois Review, and IllinoisReview.com, the largest
00:54:58.840
conservative pro-Trump, pro-MAGA news publication in Illinois and in the Midwest.
00:55:07.120
I want to thank Mark Vargas for dropping in with us today and filling in for Troy Smith,
00:55:16.220
I want to remind you folks that you can go to the app on your phone and download the
00:55:24.060
And when you do, you go to rumble.com slash Roger Stone, hit that little follow button
00:55:33.020
up there in the corner, and then set a notification.
00:55:35.940
You have several opportunities to see us here at the Stone Zone.
00:55:39.060
You can see us at 4 o'clock Central at worldviewtube.com.
00:55:45.540
That's 5 o'clock Eastern, or later at 8 p.m. by going to rumble at rumble.com slash Roger Stone.
00:55:55.840
Until tomorrow, my thanks to Mark Vargas for joining us here in the Stone Zone.
00:56:03.640
A man who's gone through hell, but he's kept going, and he's smart, and he's strong,
00:56:12.980
Not everybody, but people love him and respect him.