After Roger Stone wasn’t granted a post-Jan. 6 pardon, he grew so upset that he suggested fighting Jared Kushner, the man tapped as the point person for handling 11th-hour Trump pardons.
In new exclusive footage obtained by The Daily Beast, a yet-to-be-released documentary captured Stone’s meltdown after learning on President Joe Biden’s inauguration day that he wouldn’t be granted a second coveted legal protection, this time to shield from any Jan 6 legal fallout. (Trump issued a pardon to Stone in December 2020.)
“Jared Kushner has an IQ of 70. He’s coming to Miami. We will eject him from Miami very quickly; he will be leaving very quickly,” Stone said, while visibly shaking in anger. “Very quickly.”
Stone continued: “He has 100 security guards. I will have 5,000 security guards. You want to fight. Let’s fight. Fuck you.” (The filmmakers remain unsure of who Stone directed this remark towards.)
“Fuck you and your abortionist bitch daughter,” he concluded, referring to Ivanka Trump, according to the filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen who said there was “no doubt” who Stone was ranting about.
According to the filmmakers, the video clip above was one of the few videos hand-selected by the Jan 6th Committee, but, in the end, the committee elected not to play the clip.
Neither Stone nor a Kushner spokesperson returned The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen — part of the team that captured the moment for his upcoming documentary “A Storm Foretold” — told The Daily Beast that the tense scene was from inauguration day on January 20th, 2021, and recorded in Fort Lauderdale.
“Roger Stone has been holding out for a pardon till the very last minute, he had first written up a memo, earlier on, after January 6th, with a plan about encouraging Trump to pardon the lawmakers who had voted against certifying, and Roger Stone, and some of his clients,” Guldbrandsen said.
But he says towards the end of the road, Stone — who was “increasingly frustrated” — pushed for just a pardon for himself and longtime pal Bernard Kerik, the filmmaker said.
Guldbrandsen added that upon Stone learning he wouldn’t receive a pardon on inauguration day, he became “very upset.”
“Aside from Donald Trump, he also held Jared Kusher responsible as being the guy who was the point man on the pardon,” he said.
Elsewhere in the upcoming film, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) was caught on a hot microphone reassuring Stone that he’d be issued a pardon.
“The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” Gaetz told Stone at Trump’s National Doral golf club.
“I’ll go down hard, though. I’ll fight it right to the bitter end,” Stone pledged, to which Gaetz replied: “Yeah, but I don’t think you’re going to go down at all at the end of the day.”
While Stone has threatened to file a $25 million lawsuit against Guldbrandsen and fellow filmmaker Frederik Marbell, the duo remains not too worried about it.
“Should I be?” Guldbrandsen asked. “I think everything I have said is factually correct, and I have unequivocal documentation in the form of the footage, so I am not really concerned.”
President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he’s pardoning individuals charged with simple marijuana possession on a federal level, but his decision does not affect broad groups of Americans and non-citizens charged with the crime.
There’s historical precedent for mass application of the presidential pardon power, but the sheer size of Biden’s pardon list stands out among most recent predecessors. The White House estimates “6,500 people with prior federal convictions” and “thousands of such convictions under (Washington, DC) law could benefit from this relief.”
While Biden is issuing pardons for federal charges of simple marijuana possession, his move on Thursday did not decriminalize the drug and it remains a federal crime to possess small amounts of marijuana on federal land. Biden did announce an expedited review of how marijuana is scheduled under federal law – a move that could change how the drug is regulated in the United States and could help guide criminal laws.
In a video announcing his executive actions, Biden said that “no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.”
“It’s legal in many states, and criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,” he continued. “And that’s before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. While White and Black and Brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and Brown people are arrested, prosecuted and convicted at disproportionate rates.”
But despite those words, there is still a broad set people who will not see immediate relief from Biden’s recent actions – some who he could have pardoned and some who he doesn’t have the power to pardon.
Among those who Biden does not have power to pardon are thousands of individuals who have faced state charges for simple marijuana possession.
While Americans’ attitudes about marijuana consumption are changing – smoking weed is becoming more popular than smoking tobacco, and 19 states, two US territories, and DC have legalized small amounts of marijuana – there are still laws in most states that criminalize possessing small amounts of marijuana.
The full scope of individuals who could be pardoned as a result of state clemency for simple marijuana possession is unclear, but available law enforcement data analyzed by the American Civil Liberties Union found that in 2018, for example, there were almost 700,000 marijuana arrests, which accounted for more than 43% of all reported drug arrests. Not all drug arrests, however, lead to charges nor are they all categorized as simple marijuana possession.
The President’s presidential pardon power is limited to federal criminal cases and does not extend to state criminal charges. As part of his moves Thursday, Biden called on governors to issue similar pardons to those with state marijuana offense convictions.
Biden’s presidential proclamation states that his pardon “does not apply to individuals who were non-citizens not lawfully present in the United States at the time of their offense.”
This suggests that undocumented immigrants will not be pardoned for existing federal charges for simple marijuana possession.
But a senior administration official on Thursday noted that as a result of Biden’s proclamation, “anyone who has committed that offense could not be prosecuted federally, at this point, based on that conduct.”
The official did not make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens.
Data from the US Sentencing Commission indicates that during fiscal year 2021 some 72% of federal offenders in a case of marijuana possession were non-citizens. But it’s not clear how many non-citizens count as “lawfully” or “unlawfully” present in the country.
Matt Cameron, a Boston-based immigration attorney who also teaches immigration policy at Northeastern University, told CNN that the decision to not include non-citizens who were not lawfully present could have dire consequences for some people.
“If you’re in deportation proceedings or applying for a visa or applying green card, and you’re charged for possession, you will be denied. And you won’t be eligible for a waiver,” he said.
He added, “You could be denied a green card and you would be denied for life.”
The Department of Justice says that federal marijuana possession offenses that occur after October 6, 2022 – the date of the presidential proclamation – will not protect individuals from being charged down the road.
“The proclamation pardons only those offenses occurring on or before October 6, 2022. It does not have any effect on marijuana possession offenses occurring after October 6, 2022,” DOJ says.
However, the pardon does apply to pending federal simple marijuana possession charges, including those where conviction has not been obtained by October 6.
In a statement about his presidential proclamation, Biden emphasized that “even as federal and state regulation of marijuana changes, important limitations on trafficking, marketing, and under-age sales should stay in place.”
While Biden’s pardons will impact thousands who face simple possession charges, the act of clemency will not apply to all types of federal marijuana offenses.
“Conspiracy, distribution, possession with intent to distribute, and other charges involving marijuana are not pardoned by the proclamation,” the Justice Department says.
The DOJ also says the pardon does not apply to individuals who were convicted of possessing multiple different controlled substances in the same offense – including a charge related to possessing marijuana and another controlled substance in a single offense.
“For example, if you were convicted of possessing marijuana and cocaine in a single offense, you do not qualify for pardon under the terms of President Biden’s proclamation,” the Justice Department explained. “If you were convicted of one count of simple possession of marijuana and a second count of possession of cocaine, President Biden’s proclamation applies only to the simple possession of marijuana count, not the possession of cocaine count.”
The move also is not expected to remove any individuals from prison.
The administration official speaking to reporters on Thursday said that “there are no individuals currently in federal prison solely for simple possession of marijuana.”
Individuals seeking additional guidance regarding federal pardon eligibility and procedures should visit https://www.justice.gov/pardon for more information.
President Biden offered pardons Thursday to thousands of people convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law, as U.S. states and other governments around the world reconsider their approach toward the drug, with some moving to decriminalize or legalize it.
“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said. He called on senior administration officials to review how the drug is regulated under federal law and whether it should continue to be treated as a Schedule I substance along with drugs such as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
On Oct. 6, President Biden pardoned thousands of people convicted of a federal crime for simply possessing marijuana and urged governors to do the same. (Video: Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)
Here’s what you need to know about how U.S. marijuana policies and laws compare to those of other countries.
What does Biden’s offer of mass pardons for people convicted of simple marijuana possession mean?
More than 600,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in the United States in 2018, according to the latest available data from the American Civil Liberties Union. (Not all arrests lead to charges and convictions.) But Biden’s announcement applies only to federal prosecutions, a fraction of people affected by possession laws. His pardon power does not extend to those convicted under state law.
“Many if not most people serving time are in state systems,” said Griffen Thorne, an attorney at Harris Bricken, a law firm that works with cannabis companies. (Biden also called on state governors Thursday to offer similar pardons.)
No one is serving time in a federal prison solely for the crime of marijuana possession, White House officials said Thursday, though more than 6,500 people may have such convictions on their records.
How do the United States’ policies stack up against the rest of the world?
Possessing or consuming marijuana for any reason is illegal under federal law, but as of February, 37 states and the District of Columbia had authorized it for medical use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In addition, at least 19 states and D.C. had legalized recreational marijuana for adults as of May.
Technically, “every state-level marijuana program is a complete violation of federal law,” Thorne said, but the federal government has “looked the other way.”
A handful of countries have legalized recreational use of marijuana, though there are many gray areas and caveats. Places where it is legal to recreationally use cannabis include Uruguay, Canada and Malta. In some cases, there are restrictions on age, quantities and transport of the drug.
South Africa decriminalized adult use of cannabis in private, although purchasing or selling it remains illegal. Thailand this year legalized growing and trading marijuana. However, government officials have warned that “nonproductive” use of the drug — such as smoking it outside — could lead to penalties such as short prison terms.
Marijuana is now legal in Thailand. What does that mean for tourists?
Germany’s coalition government pledged before taking office last year to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. Australia allows medical marijuana, but recreational use at home is only legal in the Australian Capital Territory, encompassing Canberra and surrounding townships. Personal use of limited quantities of cannabis is tolerated in the Netherlands, though it’s technically illegal.
“Certainly, there are other countries that have liberal policies and are more consistent about it,” said Robert Mikos, a professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in drug law. “But because we have so many states that have legalized adult recreational or medical use, I would count the U.S. as one of the more progressive countries.”
Is the world moving toward legalizing marijuana for personal use?
Momentum toward legalizing marijuana is ramping up in Latin America and Africa, Thorne said.
A 2018 Constitutional Court decision paved the way for South Africa to decriminalize personal use, and President Cyril Ramaphosa said this year that his government would work on bolstering its domestic cannabis sector, Reuters reported. Peru legalized medical use in 2017, and Zimbabwe did so in 2018.
Marijuana is one of the world’s most widely consumed drugs, with roughly 147 million people — about 2 percent of the global population — using it annually, according to the World Health Organization. U.S. adults between the ages of 19 and 30 also used marijuana at record levels last year, the National Institutes of Health reported.
But there are pockets of opposition in parts of the world, particularly Asia. In a 2020 referendum, New Zealand voters narrowly rejected legalizing cannabis for nonmedicinal use. It is available there with a prescription. Singapore — whose tough drug laws extend to cannabis — also recently signaled that it would not move to permit medicinal marijuana in the near future.
Does the mass pardon for marijuana possession have global significance?
Maybe. U.S. drug policy has long influenced how the world treats marijuana. Since the 1960s, the United States has championed international conventions and treaties that required participating countries to ban recreational cannabis, said Mikos, the law professor.
But now that dozens of U.S. states have legalized cannabis for recreational or medicinal use, several countries “have taken that as a green light to go ahead and start experimenting,” he said.
Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told a former White House aide that he was seeking a preemptive pardon from President Donald Trump regarding an investigation in which he is a target, according to testimony given to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Johnny McEntee, according to people familiar with his testimony, told investigators that Gaetz told him during a brief meeting “that they are launching an investigation into him or that there’s an investigation into him,” without specifying who was investigating Gaetz.
McEntee added that Gaetz told him “he did not do anything wrong but they are trying to make his life hell, and you know, if the president could give him a pardon, that would be great.” Gaetz told McEntee that he had asked White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for a pardon.
Asked by investigators if Gaetz’s ask for a pardon was in the context of the Justice Department investigation into whether Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, McEntee replied, “I think that was the context, yes,” according to people familiar with the testimony who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The testimony is the first indication that Gaetz was specifically seeking a pardon for his own exposure related to the Justice Department inquiry into whether he violated sex trafficking laws. His public posture in the final months of the Trump administration was much less specific, repeatedly calling for broad preemptive pardons to fend off possible Democratic investigations.
McEntee testified that Gaetz met him briefly one evening and discussed the issue of a pardon but McEntee could not recall whether their conversation happened before or after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, according to people familiar with the testimony.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) first got involved in politics a decade ago. It didn’t take him long to find stardom in the Republican Party. (Video: Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The Justice Department investigation into whether Gaetz paid for sex, paid for women to travel across state lines to have sex, and had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, was opened in the final months of the Trump administration with approval from Attorney General William P. Barr. The probe stemmed from a federal investigation of Gaetz’s friend who is now a convicted sex trafficker. Gaetz has denied paying for sex or having sex with a minor as an adult.
McEntee did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Neither Meadows nor his lawyer immediately responded to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Gaetz declined to address the testimony or whether Gaetz discussed a pardon with McEntee or Meadows and instead responded that Gaetz never directly asked Trump for a pardon.
What to know about the sex trafficking probe involving Matt Gaetz
“Congressman Matt Gaetz discussed pardons for many other people publicly and privately at the end of President Donald Trump’s first term,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “As for himself, President Trump addressed this malicious rumor more than a year ago stating, ‘Congressman Matt Gaetz has never asked me for a pardon.’ Rep. Gaetz continues to stand by President Trump’s statement.”
The House select committee also declined to comment.
Gaetz has not been charged with any crimes but Joel Greenberg, a Gaetz associate and former tax collector for Seminole County, Fla., pleaded guilty last spring to six criminal charges, including sex trafficking of a minor. Greenberg agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors and testify in court, and has been providing investigators with information about Gaetz since 2020, The Washington Post previously reported.
Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector for Seminole County, Fla., pleaded guilty on May 17 to sex trafficking of a minor and a host of other crimes. (Video: Reuters, Photo: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP and Jabin Botsford/Reuters)
“The last time I had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, I was 17,” Gaetz has previously said. On Nov. 25, 2020, weeks after Trump lost the presidential election, Gaetz told Fox News that Trump “should pardon everyone from himself to his administration officials to Joe Exotic if he has to.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top White House aide to Meadows, told the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack that she recalled Gaetz and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) both advocating for a “blanket pardon” for lawmakers who attended a Dec. 21, 2020, meeting at the White House to discuss efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In the previously aired testimony, she said they also advocated for pardons for “a handful of other members that were not at the December 21st meeting.”
Hutchinson added that Gaetz, however, “was personally pushing” for a pardon “since early December.” But the focus of that pardon request was not clear from Hutchinson’s testimony. “I’m not sure why Mr. Gaetz would reach out to me to ask if he could have a meeting with Mr. Meadows about receiving a presidential pardon,” she added.
Brooks, who put a request for a pardon in an email to a White House aide at the time, defended his actions in a statement after Hutchinson’s testimony saying, “There was a concern Democrats would abuse the judicial system by prosecuting and jailing Republicans” for objecting in Congress to the certification of the election.
Eric Herschmann, a former Trump White House lawyer, told investigators that he also believed that Gaetz was seeking a pardon, according to an excerpt of the deposition played during one of the committee’s public hearings.
“The general tone was, we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of, you know, the president’s positions on these things,” Herschmann recalled. “The pardon that he was discussing requesting was as broad as you can describe, from the beginning — I remember he is — from the beginning of time up until today for any and all things. Then he mentioned Nixon. And I said Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad.”
Gaetz ultimately did not receive a pardon from the former president.
As Roger Stone prepared to stand trial in 2019,complaining he was under pressure from federal prosecutors to incriminate Donald Trump, a close ally of the president repeatedly assured Stone that “the boss” would likely grant himclemency if he were convicted, a recording shows.
Atan event at a Trump property that October, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) predicted that Stone would be found guilty at his trial in Washington the following month but would not “do a day” in prison. Gaetz was apparently unaware they were being recorded by documentary filmmakers following Stone, who special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had charged with obstruction of a congressional investigation.
“The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” said Gaetz, stressing that the president had “said it directly.” He also said, “I don’t think the big guy can let you go down for this.”
Gaetz at one point told Stone he was working on getting him a pardon but was hesitant to say more backstage at the event, in which speakers were being filmed for online broadcast. “Since there are many, many recording devices around right now, I do not feel in a position to speak freely about the work I’ve already done on that subject,” Gaetz said.
(Video: “A Storm Foretold”)
The lawmaker also told Stone during their conversation that Stone was mentioned “a lot” in redacted portions of Mueller’s report, appearing to refer to portions that the Justice Department had shown to select members of Congress confidentially in a secure room. “They’re going to do you, because you’re not gonna have a defense,” Gaetz told Stone.
The 25-minute recording was captured by a microphone that Stone was wearing on his lapel for a Danish film crew, which was making a feature-length documentary on the veteran Republican operative. The filmmakers allowed Washington Post reporters to review their footage in advance of the release of their film, “A Storm Foretold,” which is expected later this year.
The recording gives a rare unguarded view of Trump confidants candidly discussing legal peril away from public eyes. Mueller’s report said it was possible that Trump had both lied to investigators about his contacts with Stone and was aware Stone might provide damaging testimony against him if he chose to cooperate with prosecutors.
Gaetz is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. At the time of the conversation, the committee was investigating whether Trump might have obstructed justice by floating possible pardons to Stone and other allies who were swept up in Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
In a statement to The Post, Gaetz’s office said he was not speaking on Trump’s behalf during the pardon discussion with Stone. His remarks about secret portions of the Mueller report were not specific enough to violate the terms under which he had been permitted to view them, the statement said.
It also said the conversation was “illegally recorded.” Under Florida law, each participant in a discussion must consent for it to be recorded, provided they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Christoffer Guldbrandsen, the film’s director, said the congressman’s remark about recording devices suggested he had no such expectation. “There is nothing illegal about this recording,” Guldbrandsen told The Post.
In response to an email seeking comment, Stone complained about The Post’s past coverage of his case and Mueller’s report. He did not address questions about the conversation with Gaetz.
Stone, a friend and adviser to Trump since the 1980s, was charged by Mueller with lying to Congress about his communications with Trump’s campaign regarding WikiLeaks’ 2016 release of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign. U.S. authorities determined that the emails were hacked by Russian operatives seeking to boost Trump’s candidacy. Trump and Stone denied to Mueller that they had discussed WikiLeaks, but testimony from other Trump aides contradicted their accounts.
Stone was convicted on seven felony counts that November and sentenced to 40 months in prison. But Trump, who publicly praised Stone for not “flipping” on him, commuted his prison sentence before it began and eventually pardoned him.
Later, after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Danish crew filmed Stone as he pressed for Trump to preemptively pardon him, Gaetz and other allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, The Post previously reported. A former White House aide recently told the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 that several Republican members of Congress, including Gaetz, had sought preemptive pardons. Trump last month said he might pardon supporters for the Jan. 6 attack if he reclaims the presidency, prompting criticism, including from some Republican lawmakers.
‘We saw the skinny redaction’
Gaetz and Stone were speakers on Oct. 11, 2019, at AMPFest, a conference held by the pro-Trump group American Priority at the president’s National Doral golf resort in South Florida. The event made headlines for a video parody showing Trump violently slaying political opponents and media organizations.
Stone was scheduled to stand trial in Washington about four weeks later. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had placed him under a strict gag order early that year after an image of Jackson’s face beside a crosshairs-like logo was posted to Stone’s Instagram account. Stone apologized but was barred from discussing the case in public settings.
Before his speech at AMPFest, Stone complained to several people backstage about his case, saying it was intended to damage Trump before the 2020 election, the recording shows. He lamented his situation to Benny Johnson, a pro-Trump operative who emceed at the event. Stone claimed he would not receive a fair hearing in the capital, where Democrats far outnumber Republicans.
“I’m on trial in the District of Columbia. You can imagine the complexion of the jury pool — politically,” said Stone.
He also voiced his frustration to an unidentified event organizer before boasting about his ability to influence Trump.
“I have a 40-year record of being able to convince the big man to do what’s in his best interests,” said Stone, who has worked as a consultant to Trump’s businesses and acted as an informal adviser to his 2016 campaign.
“He’s not easy to deal with,” said Stone. “It’s complicated. And one of the problems is those who try to deal with him don’t understand the extent to which he resents any implication that he is handled or managed or directed. You can’t just say, ‘Here are your talking points, read these.’ That will never work.”
After he came offstage following his speech in the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom, Stone was joined backstage by Gaetz, a Trump favorite who was speaking later in the afternoon. With event staff coming and going nearby, their conversation turned quickly to Stone’s trial and Mueller’s investigation.
The Justice Department had publicly released a version of Mueller’s final report in which some sections were redacted to protect classified information, grand jury secrecy and active investigations or prosecutions.
Stone had asked Jackson to order prosecutors to show him a full, unredacted version of Mueller’s report. On Aug. 1, 2019, Jackson granted Stone access to some redacted sections relating to him in Vol. 1 of thereport, which focused on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Jackson said in her ruling that most of the redacted material in Vol. 2 — which covered Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice — related to Stone, but she declined to let him see it.
The material was covered by a protective order that barred Stone from sharing it with anyone other than his lawyers and from using it “for any purpose” other than his legal defense, Jackson wrote.
Backstage at AMPFest, Stone discussed the Mueller material with Gaetz in broad strokes, claiming that thanks to Jackson’s ruling, he’d viewed “the entire unredacted report,” which he said held no damaging details on him. It is not clear what Stone meant by that remark. Jackson’s order had specified that he could view only certain portions, and Stone complained in his email to The Post this week that some parts of the report were withheld from him.
Separately, the Justice Department had also shown varying amounts of the redacted material to congressional leaders, members of the Judiciary and Intelligence committees in the House and Senate and a limited number of aides. From mid-June, members ofthe Judiciary committees, such as Gaetz, were allowed to view some redacted sections in Vol. 2 of Mueller’s report.
Committee members and some aides could review the material in a “secure space” and were “permitted to discuss the report only among themselves,” the Stone prosecutors told Jackson in a court filing. As they negotiated access to the material, committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) wrote then-Attorney General William P. Barr that the committee had agreed that “they cannot discuss what they have seen with anyone else.”
Speaking backstage at AMPFest, Gaetz discussed the redacted material with Stone.
“We saw the skinny redaction, and there was, you know, there was a lot on you that was in the full redact that came out in the skinny redact,” Gaetz said, before stating that Stone was “not going to have a defense.” He did not elaborate on what he meant by the “skinny redaction.”
(Video: “A Storm Foretold”)
A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about it publicly, said the committee’s agreement not to discuss the redacted material with outsiders was formalized in a written deal with the Justice Department. A Justice official reminded committee members and aides of the conditions when they visited the department’s offices to read the redacted material, the person said. The redacted material was not classified and the agreement was not legally binding, the person said.
The statement from Gaetz’s office said the lawmaker had not violated the confidentiality agreement because he did not disclose “specific content” from the report’s redacted portions. “He did share his perception, which is allowed,” it said.
Asked about the basis for that interpretation, aides to Gaetz merely restated his position.
A House Judiciary spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
Stone told Gaetz during the backstage conversation that he was considering asking Trump for clemency in his criminal case.
“I may have to appeal to the big man, because I’ve got … it’s the District of Columbia. We surveyed 120 jurors. Ninety of them know who I am, and they hate my guts,” said Stone.
Prospective jurors in Stone’s trial had completed confidential questionnaires that asked for their views on Trump, Stone and others caught up in Mueller’s investigation. Stone’s lawyers agreed to keep the responses confidential, and no details had been disclosed publicly. Questionnaires completed by those selected as jurors were later leaked to right-wing operatives, prompting an FBI investigation. No findings were ever publicly disclosed.
Gaetz agreed that Stone was “f—ed” because of the D.C. jury, but he stressed that Trump viewed Stone favorably and that Stone was unlikely to spend time in prison after a conviction.
“I don’t think you’re going to go down at all at the end of the day,” Gaetz said.
The statement from Gaetz’s office said the conversation “largely reflects sentiments that Congressman Matt Gaetz shared publicly at the time, or sentiments he still holds today.”
It pointed to two news accounts of remarks Gaetz made in 2020, after Stone had been convicted, in which he said Trump should pardon Stone. In neither account did Gaetz say he had talked with Trump about Stone or worked to obtain clemency for Stone.
For months, Trump had openly attacked former allies for testifying against him to investigators, complaining they had “flipped” and were lying to help themselves. In interviews and social media posts, Trump said Stone was “very brave,” had shown “guts” and was “somebody that I’ve always liked.”
Stone has always insisted that he had no incriminating information about Trump to offer Mueller and said publicly there was “no circumstance” under which he would testify against Trump. At AMPFest, Stone said he and Trump had not, in fact, discussed WikiLeaks. He reiterated to Gaetz that he would not “fold” under pressure from Mueller’s team.
“It would have been easy to make this go away, but I couldn’t live with myself,” Stone told Gaetz.
“Well, you’re a bulls— artist, not a liar,” Gaetz said.
“Correct,” Stone said. “There’s a big difference.”
Stone and Gaetz spoke bluntly as the congressman awaited his turn onstage. They discussed their mutual dislike of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). Stone called him “such an a–hole,” and Gaetz said he was “one of my least favorite people I’ve ever had to work with.” Stone mocked the hairstyle and suits worn by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), prompting Gaetz to reply: “Anybody that can land a wife like that needs no advice from me.” Gaetz remarked that his district was so conservative that he effectively never had to campaign for reelection.
In the statement, Gaetz’s office said he stood by those comments.
The pair went on to discuss a photograph of them posing with Joel Greenberg, then the tax collector of Seminole County, Fla. Stone said the photograph had “come back to bite us in the a–.” Hedid not elaborate. The Orlando Sentinel had reported the previous week that Greenberg had given publicly funded contracts to friends and associates.
“Bite us in the a–?” Gaetz said. “I’m incredibly proud of that.”
Greenberg was arrested the following summer and later agreed to plead guilty to six charges, including trafficking a 17-year-old girl for sex, and to cooperate with federal investigators on further inquiries. Those inquiries included the possibility that Gaetz had paid Greenberg to procure underage girls, The Post and others have reported. A Gaetz spokesman said the congressman never paid for sex and never had sex with a minor.
Toward the end of the October 2019 recording, one of the Danish filmmakers made his way toward Stone with a camera.
The discussion shifted largely to small talk such as a shared dislike of Washington. Gaetz quipped that to escape the capital, he might ask DeSantis to make him head of Florida’s juvenile justice agency, before reflecting that Trump would not permit him to leave.
“He had heard a rumor that I was maybe not gonna run for reelection, and at the Christmas party, he berated me in front of my date. Like, straight berated me,” Gaetz said.
Johnson, the emcee, who had drifted into the conversation, argued it was a “net positive” to be berated by the president in front of a date. “That’s an alpha move,” he said.
Gaetz told The Post in an email, “While I did briefly consider joining the DeSantis administration, I ultimately decided against doing so out of fidelity to serving northwest Floridians in Congress.”
During the October 2019 conversation, talk returned to Stone’s case and to his early morning arrest by the FBI at his Florida home that January. Stone and his supporters had publicly claimed to be outraged that, as a man in his 60s charged with nonviolent crimes, he was roused by heavily armed officers in a dawn raid. Because footage of Stone’s arrest was recorded by a CNN crew waiting outside, Stone alleged that investigators improperly alerted the media before his indictment was unsealed.
“My suspect for who tipped the media off on that is you. You were my first suspect,” Gaetz told Stone backstage at AMPFest.
ROME — Retired Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness Tuesday for any “grievous faults” in his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, but denied any personal or specific wrongdoing after an independent report criticized his actions in four cases while he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.
Benedict’s lack of a personal apology or admission of guilt immediately riled sex abuse survivors, who said his response reflected the Catholic hierarchy’s “permanent” refusal to accept responsibility for the rape and sodomy of children by priests.
Benedict, 94, was responding to a Jan. 20 report from a German law firm that had been commissioned by the German Catholic Church to look into how cases of sexual abuse were handled in the Munich archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.
The report faulted Benedict’s handling of four cases during his time as archbishop, accusing him of misconduct for having failed to restrict the ministry of the four priests even after they had been convicted criminally. The report also faulted his predecessors and successors, estimating there had been at least 497 abuse victims over the decades and at least 235 suspected perpetrators.
The Vatican on Tuesday released a letter that Benedict wrote to respond to the allegations, alongside a more technical reply from his lawyers who had provided an initial 82-page response to the law firm about his nearly five-year tenure in Munich.
The conclusion of Benedict’s lawyers was resolute: “As an archbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved in any cover-up of acts of abuse,” they wrote. They criticized the report’s authors for misinterpreting their submission, and asserted that the authors provided no evidence that Benedict was aware of the criminal history of any of the four priests.
Benedict’s response was more nuanced and spiritual, though he went on at length to thank his legal team before even addressing the allegations or the victims of abuse.
“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church,” the retired pope said in his letter. “All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate.”
Benedict issued what he called a “confession,” though he didn’t confess to any specific fault. He recalled that daily Mass begins with believers confessing their sins and asking forgiveness for their faults and even their “grievous faults.” Benedict noted that in his meetings with abuse victims while he was pope, “I have seen at firsthand the effects of a most grievous fault.
“And I have come to understand that we ourselves are drawn into this grievous fault whenever we neglect it or fail to confront it with the necessary decisiveness and responsibility, as too often happened and continues to happen,” he wrote. “As in those meetings, once again I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness.”
His response drew swift criticism from Eckiger Tisch, a group representing German clergy abuse survivors, who said it fit into the church’s “permanent relativizing on matters of abuse — wrongdoing and mistakes took place, but no one takes concrete responsibility,” the group said.
“Joseph Ratzinger can’t bring himself simply to state that he is sorry not to have done more to protect the children entrusted to his church,” the group said.
The response will likely complicate efforts by German bishops to try to re-establish credibility with the faithful, since their demands for accountability have only increased as the church has come to terms with decades of abuse and cover-up.
The head of the German bishops conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, had previously said that Benedict needed to respond to the report by distancing himself from his lawyers and advisers. “He must talk, and he must override his advisers and essentially say the simple sentence: ’I incurred guilt, I made mistakes and I apologize to those affected,” Baetzing said.
In a tweet Tuesday, Baetzing noted that Benedict had responded.
”I am grateful to him for that and he deserves respect for it,” Baetzing wrote. The tweet didn’t address the substance of Benedict’s response.
The law firm report identified four cases in which Ratzinger was accused of misconduct in failing to act against abusers.
Two cases involved priests who offended while Ratzinger was archbishop and were punished by the German legal system but were kept in pastoral work without any limits on their ministry. A third case involved a cleric who was convicted by a court outside Germany but was put into service in Munich. The fourth case involved a convicted pedophile priest who was allowed to transfer to Munich in 1980, and was later put into ministry. In 1986, that priest received a suspended sentence for molesting a boy.
Benedict’s team had earlier clarified an initial “error” in their submission to the law firm that had insisted Ratzinger was not present at the 1980 meeting in which the priest’s transfer to Munich was discussed. Ratzinger was there, but his return to ministry was not discussed, they said.
Benedict said he was deeply hurt that the “oversight” about his presence at the 1980 meeting had been used to “cast doubt on my truthfulness, and even to label me a liar.” But he said he had been heartened by the support he had received, including from his successor.
“I am particularly grateful for the confidence, support and prayer that Pope Francis personally expressed to me,” he said.
The Vatican had already strongly defended Benedict’s record in the aftermath of the law firm report, recalling that Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse, that he had issued strong norms to punish priests who raped children and had directed the church to pursue a path of humility in seeking forgiveness for the crimes of its clerics.
The Vatican’s defense, however, focused primarily on Benedict’s tenure as head of the Holy See’s doctrine office and his eight-year papacy.
Benedict reflected on his legacy in his letter.
“Quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life,” he wrote. “Even though, as I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling, I am nonetheless of good cheer. For I trust firmly that the Lord is not only the just judge, but also the friend and brother who himself has already suffered for my shortcomings.”
Benedict’s response also rang hollow outside of Germany, with the U.S.-based survivor’s advocacy group, SNAP, accusing him of “repeating words of apology that have fallen on deaf ears for decades.”
And Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney of “Spotlight” fame who has represented hundreds of abuse victims, said Benedict’s words re-victimized and insulted survivors.
“He’s a leader setting a poor example morally, and in the process he is encouraging further cover-up of clergy sexual abuse. The criminality continues,” he said.
———
AP reporters Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mark Pratt in Boston contributed.
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Donald Trump floated the idea of a blanket pardon for January 6 rioters before leaving office, according to a report by Politico.
The news comes as the former president has turned on one of his most loyal Republican allies, Lindsey Graham, after he dismissed Mr Trump’s latest suggestion that he would pardon rioters who stormed the US Capitol that have faced criminal sentences should he return to office in 2024.
The former president floated the idea over the weekend, putting him at odds even with many Republicans. When Mr Graham also took against it, Mr Trump told a Newsmax interviewer that his dogged ally “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” and even called him a “RINO”.
Senator Graham stands by his comments, reiterating his position without mentioning Mr Trump.
As the 6 January House Select Committee looks into the former president’s role in sowing distrust over the outcome of the 2020 election, Democrat congressman Pete Aguilar of California, who is on the investigation panel, was asked if the comments about pardoning Capitol rioters amounted to witness tampering.
He replied: “Absolutely.”
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Fox News host Tucker Carlson donated $250 to Republican Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, filings from the Federal Election Commission show.
Mr Carlson has been one of the biggest promoters of conspiracy theories about 6 January, promoting a three-part documentary called “Patriot Purge” that largely sanitises the insurrection on the Capitol.
The Fox News host has featured Ms Greene on his show in the past.
More details from Eric Garcia here:
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Donald Trump seriously considered issuing mass pardons for those involved with the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021, in the final days of his presidency, according to reporting from Politico.
Before Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January, then-president Trump reportedly made three calls to an adviser to ask whether he should pardon a pro-Trump mob that
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Donald Trump is reportedly ready to “burn it all down” as several investigations into his and his family’s conduct begin to close in on him.
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ICYMI: Former President Donald Trump will be speaking at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on 24-27 February in Orlando, Florida, according to a press release from organisers.
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California Democratic Representative Pete Aguilar has said that former President Donald Trump is “absolutely” tampering with witnesses as he dangles possible pardons if he gets elected again in 2024.
Mr Trump said at a rally in Texas over the weekend that “if I run and if I win” in 2024, “we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly”.
Gustaf Kilander has the story.
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Mr Trump recently stated that he would look to pardon the 6 January insurrectionists if re-elected, a move which Senator Graham labelled as “dangerous” during a Sunday morning appearance on CBS.
Donald Trump considered issuing a blanket pardon to participants in the January 6 insurrection before he left office, two former advisers have said.
The news, from Politico, landed after Trump told an audience on Texas on Saturday he would issue pardons to rioters if elected president again in 2024.
“If I run and if I win,” Trump said in Conroe, Texas, “we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.”
That prompted a storm of protest also fueled by Trump urging followers to protest against prosecutors in New York and Georgia investigating his business affairs and attempted election subversion.
Liz Cheney, a Republican on the House committee investigating January 6, said: “Trump uses language he knows caused the January 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the January 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election.
“He’d do it all again if given the chance,” she warned.
Supporters urged on by Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s win. More than 100 police officers were injured and seven people died.
More than 700 have been charged. The most serious charges, against 11 members of a far-right militia, allege seditious conspiracy.
On Wednesday, Politico cited two unnamed advisers as saying Trump asked if he had the power to issue a blanket pardon before leaving office.
“Do you think I should pardon them? Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you think I have the power to do it?” Trump reportedly asked one adviser.
The other said Trump asked if “everybody that had a Trump sign or everybody who walked into the Capitol” could be pardoned.
“He said, ‘Some people think I should pardon them.’ He thought if he could do it, these people would never have to testify or be deposed.”
Politico reported that the issue went nowhere, in a period in which Trump faced cabinet resignations, a second impeachment – in which he was acquitted – and even talk of removal via the 25th amendment.
One adviser told the website it was thought Pat Cipollone, Trump’s second White House counsel, would quit if Trump pushed too hard.
Neither Trump nor Cipollone commented. Politico said one adviser said Trump had been brainstorming more than genuinely considering a blanket pardon.
While in office, Trump was liberal with pardons to aides, including Steve Bannon, accused of fraud, and Michael Flynn, who admitted lying to the FBI. He reportedly considered issuing pre-emptive pardons to himself and family members.
Trump continues to toy with announcing a run for a second term. A third anonymous adviser told Politico Trump wanted to announce a 2024 run before leaving office on 20 January 2021, but was put off by campaign finance logistics.
“At the time, he wanted to not just be the leader of the party, but flat-out show the world that he’s running again and you’re not going to stop him,” the adviser was quoted as saying.
One adviser told Politico Trump started saying 2020 was rigged – a lie advanced by the former president and the Republican party – simply to keep his base energised.
“He wanted to carry the sense of grievance into the election cycle,” the adviser was quoted as saying. “He said, ‘I’m running again.’”
SEOUL, South Korea — The government of President Moon Jae-in said on Friday that it would pardon former President Park Geun-hye, who is serving a 20-year prison term after she was convicted on bribery and other criminal charges.
Ms. Park, 69, who was impeached and ousted from office in a historic decision, will be freed on Dec. 31 to promote “reconciliation and consolidate national power to help overcome the national crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
She has served four years and nine months of her sentence so far.
Ms. Park, a daughter of the former military dictator Park Chung-hee, was in her fourth year in power in 2016 when hundreds of thousands of protesters began months of weekly rallies in central Seoul demanding that she be forced from office for corruption and incompetence.
That December, the National Assembly impeached her on charges of bribery and abuse of presidential power in a case that exposed deep collusive ties between powerful politicians and the huge family-controlled conglomerates known as chaebol.
In March 2017, Ms. Park became the first South Korean leader to be removed from office through parliamentary impeachment after the Constitutional Court upheld the lawmakers’ decision. Shortly afterward, she was arrested on multiple criminal charges. In an initial ruling in 2018, she was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
In January this year, the Supreme Court reduced Ms. Park’s sentence to 20 years and ordered her to pay 18 billion won ($15 million) in fines, saying that she and her longtime friend and confidante Choi Soon-sil had collected or demanded $19.3 million in bribes from three big businesses, including $7 million they collected from Samsung, South Korea’s largest and most lucrative business group.
In 2004, George Floyd was one of scores of people arrested on the word of a Houston narcotics officer, Gerald M. Goines, who said he had watched Mr. Floyd hand over a “dime rock” of crack cocaine during an undercover drug buy.
But after a botched drug raid ended with the death of a couple in their Houston home in 2019, Mr. Goines, who is now retired, became the center of a massive policing scandal that resulted in felony charges against nine officers.
Prosecutors say Mr. Goines fabricated evidence to conduct the raid, including by inventing an informant, and have charged him with two counts of felony murder. He also faces federal civil rights charges, but has denied the allegations.
Now the state parole board has recommended a posthumous pardon in the Houston case for Mr. Floyd, whose killing during an unrelated arrest in Minneapolis in 2020 touched off a national debate over race and policing.
The pardon was requested by the Harris County Public Defender’s Office and endorsed by the district attorney, Kim Ogg.
Mr. Floyd and Mr. Goines “have come into the spotlight on opposite sides of the same issue: the vast unfairness of the United States’ criminal justice system, and specifically, the grotesque abuses of power by police officers,” Allison Mathis, a public defender, wrote in the 241-page pardon application.
Granting the pardon, she said, would show that Texas was interested in “fundamental fairness” and increasing accountability for police officers “who break our trust and their oaths.”
The board’s vote for a pardon on Monday was unanimous, but a final decision will be made by Gov. Greg Abbott. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Floyd initially fought the charges, then accepted a plea deal in the case and was sentenced to serve 10 months. Had he gone to trial, the pardon application said, he could have been branded a habitual offender and faced a minimum sentence of 25 years.
Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, civil rights lawyers who represent Floyd family members, called upon the governor to grant the pardon, but added that passing criminal justice reform measures was even more important. “Like the U.S. Senate, the Texas Legislature left undone the hard but necessary work of protecting residents from unacceptable police violence,” they wrote in a statement.
The deadly Houston raid occurred in January 2019, when officers burst into the home of a Navy veteran, Dennis Tuttle, and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, working on information that drugs had been bought there by Mr. Goines and others. A shootout ensued that left Mr. Tuttle and Ms. Nicholas dead and five officers wounded. Afterward, prosecutors said it appeared that Mr. Goines had lied about the drug purchases.
The district attorney’s office identified more than 150 people, including Mr. Floyd, who were convicted in cases where Mr. Goines was the sole witness or submitted a search warrant affidavit, said Joshua Reiss, the chief of the district attorney’s post-conviction writs division. He said his office attempted to notify all of them so they could petition to have their convictions vacated.
Mr. Floyd probably never received his letter, which was sent to a Houston address after he had moved to Minneapolis.
Last year a pair of brothers, Steven and Otis Mallet Jr., were exonerated on the grounds that Mr. Goines had falsified evidence against them in an unrelated case. The pattern established by that case and the botched raid, Mr. Reiss said, means that other defendants who want relief will not be required to prove that Mr. Goines lied, only that their conviction rested on evidence he provided.
Many of the defendants have been difficult to find, Ms. Mathis, the public defender, said. She filed the pardon application partly in hopes that the publicity would help reach more of them.
While most of the cases involved low-level drug offenses with relatively short sentences, she said, the prior convictions could make punishment harsher if the person was arrested again.
Nicole DeBorde, a lawyer for Mr. Goines, said he had pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. She said that the prosecutors’ move to dismiss convictions in his previous cases was a way of bolstering the criminal case against him in the drug raid.
“There’s no new evidence of any kind to indicate that there’s any misconduct whatsoever or any problem with any of those previous arrests,” she said.
Mr. Goines’s former partner, Steven Bryant, pleaded guilty to falsifying records and faces up to 20 years in prison.
According to a report in Texas Monthly, Texas has granted a posthumous pardon only once, in a rape case where the defendant was cleared by DNA evidence.