I’m posting a day or or two later than usual after Ghislane Maxwell seemingly managed to survive this past weekend in prison, something that indeed surprised many, not least the people who have already likely instructed their lawyer to make her disappear. You know how these things work though, we all know that if there are what look like guard dogs in the prison, they’re probably seeing eye dogs for the legally blind prison staff put in charge of her safety.

Nonetheless, the main legal story this week has been the furore about Roger Stone, the political consultant and lobbyist who had been one of the few people charged with something to come out of the Mueller report. The other people charged? The US taxpayer of course, they were charged tens of millions of dollars to pay for the investigation that ultimately showed the Trump 2016 campaign to have had about as much Russian Influence as the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The narrative woven by those against the President certainly turned out to be no less fictional than those in the Canterbury Tales and you can maybe imagine the Clerk or the Merchant inventing the story if the progressive left hadn’t already left to start a protest movement having heard some of earlier tales. I’m not sure if the Wife of Bath had a twitter account or not, I’m tempted to suggest “no” given that it was the 14th century but then publishers are quite keen to retroactively airbrush and change the past to suit today’s moral and ethical standards so who knows what the latest version contains.

Nonetheless, there remains two questions. Was he guilty and was President Trump wrong for commuting the sentance. The answer to the first part is simple enough: yes, he did lie to congress. He probably thought it was the done thing given the sort of people who worked there on a daily basis. Part two though is more subtle because the prosecution, trial and sentencing were about as fair as that game as the side of the road with the cups and balls where you lose whichever one you pick. The whole grift of prosecuting Roger Stone was more about justifying an investigation that contained less than one of Robert Maxwell’s pension plans. One key factor being that the jury was led by a foreperson who was a semi-professional anti-trump activist and democratic fundraiser. It’s also worth noting that President Trump didn’t actually pardon Stone, he simply commuted the sentence and that’s a subtle but important difference that is lost on the sort of people that think own an electric car because wielding a petrol pump reminds them of a gun. I could also list off the litany of other presidents who commuted sentences in the past, they all do it, an especially corrupt one being Bill Clinton who used his executive authority to get his brother off the hook. I guess it’s an executive power that Prince Andrew really wishes his mother employed.