High Crimes and Misdemeanors. What Just Happened?

Trump waited until Friday night to announce he had commuted his buddy, Roger Stone's, prison sentence literally on the eve of the dirty trickster's start of a 40-month prison sentence. Over the weekend Trump made a few feeble attempts to explain it all away. Sure, Stone lied to FBI investigators and, yes, Stone tried to intimidate a witness, but, in Trump's addled mind, the investigation went nowhere, there were no charges, so it was no harm/no foul.

Only there was a lot more to this commutation. Roger Stone said as much. He even put it in writing. Stone said he was going to jail because he kept his mouth shut and, for that, he deserved a pardon or commutation. The subtext was, if I wind up in a cell, I'm talking. I'll have my revenge on you, Donald J. Trump.

What we were witnessing was the absolute corruption of the presidency and it reaches from the Oval Office straight into the Department of Justice under the thoroughly corrupt attorney general, Bill Barr. This goes way beyond "high crimes and misdemeanors" of the Nixon or Clinton variety*. This reaches into felony extortion and obstruction of justice. This is jail time stuff.

Glenn Kirshner explains.