Steve Stockman former Congressman professional provocateur controversial conservative was convicted in Houston earlier this year on 23 out of 24 counts part of a 28-count indictment. During that 12-day trial former staff turned and testified against him and the federal government put on many witnesses to speak about his alleged crimes. I was a key FBI witness and as an attorney who reviewed the case and the allegations made against Stockman I carry the burden of knowing that hes completely innocent.
The challenge is to find anyone who seems to care.
Stockman is a kind of phenomenon in his part of the country. Southeast Texas had been reliably Democrat when he first won office in 1994 his third try against the then-Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jack Brooks. Brooks was a legend and had been in office longer than Stockman had been alive.
Lt. Col. Oliver North had come into Stockmans district in the 90s to help him defeat Brooks. Brooks is actually shown in the photo of LBJ being sworn into office after President Kennedys assassination. Stockman doggedly ran against him until finally dethroning him from his seat and chairmanship.
Unbeknown to Rush Limbaugh he was a key factor in Stockmans 1994 win as he helped lay several years of groundwork for the victory.
Stockman recalls laying out his and his wifes wedding invitation while listening to Limbaughs radio show in 1988 at a time Stockman was state chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas. In 1993 friends recorded Limbaughs TV shows and played them for gatherings of conservatives spearheaded by Stockman and associates.
There conservatives ate pizza and cheered Limbaugh as they rolled conservative newspapers for distribution throughout the area. Many of those folks became volunteers in Stockmans victorious 2014 campaign. Limbaughs broadcasts were instrumental in changing political attitudes of traditional Democrats in southwest Texas where Stockman was elected.
Stockman was part of the historic 104thCongress that gave Republicans their first House majority in 40 years. That group of Republicans who were elected in 1994 proclaimed Limbaugh an honorary member of their congressional class and Stockman was likely the only member of that class who had gone to Dans bake sale in Colorado the previous year. Having flown in 1993 from Texas with a friend in a twin engine plane to attend Dans bake sale Stockman recalls that on the return trip they nearly went down due to engine difficulties putting him in fear of his life.
Limbaugh even mentioned Stockman in one of his broadcasts describing a meeting between Bill Bennett in the elevator with Stockman discussing how he had defeated 42-year incumbent Jack Brooks.
Stockman lost his seat in 1996 having gotten the majority of votes but slightly under 50 percent in the November special election when a third candidate had entered the race due to Texas redistricting. He barely lost a flawed December runoff with the Democrat for whom some precincts voted with over 100 percent voter turnout. In that runoff Stockman alone received more votes than both Democrat and Republican candidates combined in each of two other Houston area runoff elections the same day.
Few know that during his campaigns in the 90s Stockman was on the cutting edge developing and pioneering campaign technology that has now become commonplace with perhaps the first microtargeting of voters use of voter attitudinal surveys to help inform voters on their issues and even a fundraising email when email was new and not at all universally used.
Stockman turned to pastors and the Christian community helping pastors organize educational gatherings called Mobilizing Morality in America" conferences with nationally known speakers including Tim LaHaye Jerry Falwell David Barton and Rick Scarborough. He had the support of gun owners. Additionally uncharacteristically for Republicans he had courted and won much of the union vote.
Working in conservative politics thereafter Stockman eventually came back to Congress with a win in 2012 staying one term until mounting a challenge to the establishment Republican incumbent Senator John Cornyn rather than running for re-election to his House seat. While in office Stockman appeared on Sean Hannitys radio show and on Fox News and Business television shows several times. Due to his newsmaking actions in 2013 and 2014 Stockman appeared on the Drudge Report reportedly more than all other members of the 113thCongress combined.
His career seemed to brilliantly flare twice once in the 90s and again with the unexpected second act punctuated by distinctive moves such as refusing to vote for re-election of then-Speaker John Boehner bringing Ted Nugent as his guest to the State of the Union address making stimulating statements to the media and trying to push the Republican caucus to be more conservative. He was a sort-of conservative populist pre-Trump who the working class could identify with.
The personal experiences that shaped him would have been made into feature films if his politics had been different. He grew up a middle-class kid who as a young adult was even homeless for a season. But he became a Christian turned his life around and served as a lawmaker in Washington all within the span of 15 years. Its the kind of fairytale we want to believe about our elected officials that anyone with ambition discipline and courage can become a political leader that you dont have to be a well-connected millionaire lawyer to be elected.
I met him through conservative politics and enjoyed helping out on his various projects. He is a man with vision passion and a commitment to the truth. He never belonged in a political world filled with disloyal mediocrities. Notably in politics I dont recall a single time he ever lied to me.
His legal problems first started back in 1994 when the FEC harassed him and deposed him as a candidate under the FECs then Assistant Counsel for Enforcement Lois Lerner. Yes; that Lois Lerner.
Then trouble arose again in 2013 with an uninformed campaign accountant. A couple of staffers wanted to pay off some campaign debts and gave the donations themselves. They were unaware that there was a Congressional rule against it and the donations were flagged by those who scrutinize campaign finance filings to harass political opponents.
Trying to fix the situation the staff attorney and accountant rationalized that it was better to say that those donations were from the staffers parents. In fact the accountant admitted on the witness stand that logging those donations in parents names was his idea not Stockmans.
In this way they made a bad problem infinitely worse taking a refundable mistaken donation and possible civil fine due to an arcane campaign rule and causing it to look purposefully deceptive in its sourcing.
The lawyers remedy for this second mistake was to make a third one and retroactively fire the staffers for the single day on which they made the donation. Stockman likely didnt know what his keystone cops were doing and the evidence says quite clearly he didnt. But hes in prison now because of the forces unleashed as a result of these relatively innocent paperwork snafus.
What never came to light in Stockmans trial was that the staffers donations were ultimately returned to them and the FEC report corrected thus cleaning the slate. Mistakes along this line and multiple corrections to get it right are not at all uncommon with FEC reports of candidates from both parties. That should have been the end of it certainly not proceeded as charges in civil court let alone as felonies in federal criminal court.
Nevertheless these transactions caught the eye of a DC watchdog" group that serves to harass conservative elected officials for minor transgressions. The penalty was an ethics referral to the Office of Congressional Ethics that then used the mistakes by those staffers to vacuum up information from Stockmans office including unrelated items that could be referred for criminal prosecution. Once they had their teeth into your office there was no limit on what they can request.
When you take up years of communications between a party any party youre likely to find things out of context to see things in a narrative frame that looks unflattering. The government spent over five years and at least four federal grand juries investigating Stockman (one in DC one in Baltimore and two in Houston). They called 36 witnesses over 12 days and subpoenaed hundreds of documents rushing the case once indictment had been secured so as to push through their desired verdict.
Their subpoenas were for all communications and everything referred to in legal circles as global discovery" for over five years of communications across many names and corporate entities. Just in discovery production of relevant and irrelevant documentation the government gathered over 250000 documents. To my knowledge the defense didnt look at a single one because they didnt have the time.
The discovery abuse that accompanies a federal investigation terrifies the participants into acquiescence to the government merely by its unlimited scope. The terror of the process also brings into focus any sins and transgressions ever made by the potential witness. When the panopticon sees all it will find the wrongs it wants to selectively punish.
The scale of resources arrayed against a federal defendant is hard to contextualize. On one side is a government that has total information awareness the ability to subpoena email providers banks and intimidate anyone who steps in their way. For the defense you hope a judge agrees with your discovery subpoena upon a recipient whose participation is essentially voluntary. Enforcing defense discovery rights is essentially nonexistent in federal practice. Youre reliant on working with whatever the government has collected and benevolently decides to offer to the defense. Theres no way of knowing what they didnt turn over. Theres also no effective way to badger information that might prove your innocence.
What they found in the trove of Stockmans life were two nonprofit organizations one that he fundraised for in the years prior to running for office. I was an attorney for one of them. But the charges against Stockman turned on donations $800000 of which was given after he was in office. He had legally drawn a salary from the $115000 given in 2012 when he worked for the nonprofit before going to Congress. Of the monies given in 2013 or 2014 not a dime ever went to Stockman. The four gifts were from two individuals the now-deceased Stanford Rothschild a financier and art collector from Baltimore and Richard Uihlein the billionaireowner of the Uline office supply business. The government claimed that both were essentially defrauded into making donations to nonprofits. While the donations involved totaled $915000 the government and press continued to repeat the amount of $1.2 million less money that Hillary reflected in tax returns as other expenses" of the Clinton Foundation nonprofit.
Neither donor had complained to anyone nor asked for their money back. The FBI just showed up asking questions about large donations to nonprofits and causing donors to think they may have done something wrong; asking questions that might make billionaires nervous. No one had a problem with how the funds were spent until those became a leverage point for the government to pressure its prey. They werent interested in the billionaires anyway just as they werent interested in the accountant turned states witness who set this train in motion. But they still needed those people in order to accomplish their mission.
Stockmans wife Patti observed that her husband loved both donor Uihlein and his father and would have never acted to cheat or defraud them. In fact Stockman considered Uihleins father as a mentor.
However once the feds have a trove of information its just a matter of document review and creativity to find something to charge. The popular Licensed to Liebook by former Justice official Sidney Powell goes over the wide authority federal criminal prosecutors have in finding charges to pursue. Anything looks like mail fraud. Anything looks like wire fraud. It just has to touch the mail and cash a check for underlying conduct that can be made to look salacious or untoward. And thats where they knew they had Stockman.
The DOJ was so eager to try Stockmans case in the press that although the federal complaint record authorizing Stockmans arrest was sealed they deliberately broke the law and leaked the situation because reporter Phil Archer of Houstons NBC News was present to report on March 16 2017 when Stockman appeared before a federal magistrate the day after his arrest. Prosecutors pick and choose their use of and respect for sealed records. Just days before Stockmans trial ended in April 2018 the prosecutors filed something with the court under seal and to this day even Stockmans attorneys do not know what was filed.
Stockmans real crime is that hes neither rich nor part of the political establishment. Hes a visionary who doesnt effectively manage the details. He doesnt lie break the law or hurt people but his ADHD and non-detailed oversight of bureaucratic compliance made him an easy target. To allege an underlying fraud to sustain these charges federal authorities needed to weave a sordid tale.
State fraud accusations have standards but federal ones dont. Federal fraud is whatever prosecutors say it is and here they said it was fraudulent solicitation" in the request for funds from a donor because those funds werent spent on a proposed house for training and housing young people that was just one of numerous items in the Congressional Freedom Foundation proposal that led to his gift.
But there were interns a lot of them. A record number in fact. And a lot of the funds were spent for training and educating young folks. The Houston Chroniclewhich Ive caught purposefully lying about this case on repeated occasions and whose response to corrections is to complain that the news cycle has passed" specifically quoted an intern coordinator and recruiter as saying the intern work environment was horrific" but this is a guy who quit before day two.
According to the Government the whole thing was fraud because the money raised toward the nearly $2.5 million Congressional Freedom Foundation proposal was not spent toward the proposed $1.3 million house for interns but rather went for other legitimate nonprofit expenditures like salaries educational endeavors and additional fundraising activities for the organization.
Interestingly an independent accounting analysis subsequent to trial of the evidence provided by prosecution shows not one single cent of the donations going to Stockman personally after he went to Congress. The government spent days of the trial examining Stockmans personal expenses from his earnings in employment with of the non-profits for which he worked prior to his taking office. After he was in Congress he didnt want to accept income from other sources so Stockman never took any pay whatsoever from the nonprofit donations that came in after he was in office.
His and his wifes modest home is a 1400 square foot house and Stockman drives a 12-year-old minivan with over 100000 miles on it. There was no relevance whatsoever of the governments presentation of years of Stockmans pre-congressional personal expenses. Prosecutors didnt bother to show jurors Stockmans personal expenses during his congressional years when the majority of the donations in question were made. The reason they didnt cover it was because his personal finances werent impacted by the 2013-2014 donations.
Cases like these where the facts are so far out of the lane for the indicted conduct rely upon a judge who can dismiss these charges early on and can prevent a jury from ever reviewing a case where they might jail someone famous just for the schadenfreude of sending a legislator to prison.
Sadly there was no such intervention that would save Stockman or even slow misapplication of laws. Judge Lee Rosenthal had pretty unveiled contempt for Stockman. To my knowledge she did not sustain a single motion or request by the defense. At one point during an argument I was presenting to her in court she was making obvious non-verbal cues such as rolling her eyes and laughing at my argument quietly just feet away from me. However those werent captured on the written court reporters record so I started reading her gestures into the record for posterity.
This is the state of justice in federal courts: only her shame in possibly being caught by someone for acting so wildly inappropriately so laughable the concept of justice and fairness in her court that I was able to at least stop her from muted laughing at defense-oriented arguments for that one day in that one moment. She was never going to do anything but rubber stamp Stockmans prison sentence.
Our justice system is set up to provide bulwarks and checks at every point in the system. Every part of the process has an individual who decides to move forward and has the discretion to stop its advance but in practice no one does relying on the validation of the other people in that process to rationalize their abdication of responsibility. No one was going to stop Stockmans indictment and no one was going to presume him innocent as most Americans mistakenly believe our judicial system does.
Ruffling many Republican feathers Stockman had made what many considered a quixotic campaign for Senate by filing against notable establishment Republican John Cornyn. While he was outspent 10000 to 1 he brought the entrenched Cornyn down to only 59 percent of the primary vote. Subsequently because Texas is Republican the incumbent senator won the general election over his Democrat opponent. Stockman was then out of office but not out of trouble.
The Office of Congressional Ethics through which Stockmans case first passed was set up by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in March 2008 and regularly serves as the precursor to litigation. Staffed with former federal prosecutors they primp criminal cases under the auspices of ethics. From this office under the guise of responding to ethics" complaints the office can vacuum up emails testimony and information that can then be handed off to the Justice Department for prosecution even on unrelated charges to the original complaints. That process once started has no actual end.
Its a very neat work-around to the protections in the judicial system and the OCE heavily pursues conservative congressmen. Its no surprise that the House Republicans tried to get rid of this office early on in 2017 but the misunderstood effort was ultimately stopped when President Trump questioned in a tweet the logic of doing away with it.
Stockman was the fighter that many voters were demanding. But his actions repeatedly raised the ire of the Obama administration when he signed onto legislation to impeach then Attorney General Eric Holder announced his willingness to consider impeachment of President Obama exposed Hillary Clintons violation of the Iran sanctions and called for the arrest of Lois Lerner for her contempt of Congress. These sorts of bold actions put not only a spotlight on Stockman as a congressman willing to stand out but they put a target on him with the Obama administration. The DOJs Eric Holder Lois Lerner and Obama wanted to make an example out of him.
The process keeps pursuing prey time and time again but the vanity and fear of those politicians ensnared by OCE facing a multi-year federal criminal investigation is not something anyone wants to admit to. OCE leaks identities of people they investigate" and then those people either often resign to avoid further harassment or spend a few years being investigated sapping any financial reserves they have on expensive DC attorneys. It functions as a perfect internal control mechanism for representatives who fall afoul of leadership.
In private several former members of Congress will admit that the process caused them to leave Congress fearful that they would be crushed by this system and fearful that it would restart if they were to publicly oppose it. Only the very wealthy can afford to stay in Congress and fight the system.
A referral into the criminal system after all is usually fatal to ones finances and political career. The federal judicial system is merely a paperwork process to imprisonment. With 95 percent of cases pleading guilty and of those few that go to trial 95 percent are convicted only the Soviet Union could boast better prosecutorial success rates and even then only by the slimmest of margins.
One might be tempted to indulge the fantasy that perhaps the federal prosecutors only choose good cases and are merely very selective. Yet even the most famous federal prosecutions are so fraught with error that even the prosecutors have some tinge of conscience about what theyd done after the fact. In the Bundy prosecution it was only the admission of a former prosecutor who alerted litigants to misdeeds by the government.
In the prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens it was only after Attorney General Eric Holder weighed in to have the guilty verdicts set aside that one federal prosecutor in the Public Integrity" Unit Nicholas Marsh had the tables turned on him for once. Under the pressure he regularly put citizens under Marsh decided to kill himself rather than face an inevitable prosecution. Of course though the misdeeds in that case were handled by mere probation instead of incarceration.
This process and the same Public Integrity section of the DOJ took in all of Stockmans emails information and communications. For five years the DOJ spent an estimated $15-20 million dollars looking into every single email he sent or received and every single text message sent or received. There were FBI tails" to watch Stockman in Washington Houston and his international travel. Friends family donors and allies were sent subpoenas that covered everything over five years. The government sucked in via subpoena every single item about Stockman from January 2010 through the date it was issued in most cases over five years. It was the absolute definition of a fishing expedition.
Fraud is the best allegation possible when federal prosecutors are going after someone. Not only is there no standard of federal fraud but it can mean anything. In the federal systems model jury instruction for the Fifth Circuit where Stockman was convicted there is no model explanation of fraud. The government is encouraged to invent something that sounds good. Judges are encouraged to make it up to fit the record because frauds can come in many stripes. Normally a crime has elements certain factual requirements in order to make sure a charged crime matches the actual facts. There is a common law standard of fraud and most states have elements but the federal courts do not they let prosecutors and judges make them up as they go along.
The common law elements of fraud have five parts 1) that a statement is made 2) which is false 3) that is significant 4) that the speaker knew was false when it was made and 5) that the person who was hurt relied upon. If any of those things is not present then a conviction under that crime isnt proper. Its not a fraud if the statement made is true for example. Its not a fraud if the statement made was minor and insignificant. Its also not fraud under the common law if the person who heard the statement didnt rely upon it to make their decision.
Unfortunately for Stockman common law isnt practiced in federal court.
Prosecutorial misconduct exists on many levels and its often difficult to prove and even difficult to uncover. In the Stockman case as but one personal example an FBI agent put on file a report of child in distress" with my local police in order to generate a visit to our home by Child Protective Services notorious in Texas for being heavy-handed and potentially taking children away from parents. When the officer made the report my wife actually heard him say to the dispatcher Thanks for helping me out."
If he actually thought there was a child in distress of course he could have and should have just busted the door down to help that child. But thats not what he wanted he wanted it put into the record so that it would be a huge problem for us for a mere phone call from him. It was zero risk and huge reward for an agent of the prosecution who sought to exert maximum pressure on people associated with Stockmans defense. When I brought this up to the trial court they said it was irrelevant and hearsay even though theres a 911 phone call record from FBI Agent Preston Joy available as a government record.
Who else got pressured? I dont know. I know that one major witness was out of the country and came back for unexplained reasons. I know one witness who is accused of actually soliciting the funds and who actually wrote the proposal in question pled guilty immediately even though his proposal and the nonprofit were totally legitimate. Theres a reason 95 percent of people indicted take a plea bargain because 95 percent of those who opt to go to trial end up convicted. Furthermore only 5.6 percent of those who seek appellate relief for their criminal convictions get any relief whatsoever. The odds say that equal justice under law" in the federal courts has an effective 100 percent incarceration rate.
I know that for the primary federal prosecutors in this case Robert Heberle and Ryan Ellersick there will only be praise approbation and commendations. No one will care that their target was outspent 200:1 or that the witnesses allowed by the judge at trial were 18:1 in favor of the prosecution or that they effectively buried the defense in irrelevant documents so they couldnt present a defense. Their careers will advance regardless of guilt or innocence they won a conviction against a Congressman after all.
No one cared about the truth they cared about the narrative. It was less important as to how things factually were than how they could be politically framed in the moment. If you can get away with the lie to exert maximum political and personal damage on someone it doesnt matter if a correction gets printed later or if an appeal succeeds; all that the masses remember is the original hit. And the Feds know that.
Lois Lerner knew how to land hits. She knew how to be a bureaucrat. Her resume reads like a swamp creature slithering her way through the chambers of power in the Deep State. She came to attention as the head of charities for the Internal Revenue Service called Exempt Organizations" by the government. Before that she worked at the Federal Election Commission as Associate General Counsel and before that she worked at the Department of Justice in what has become the Public Integrity Section the department that prosecuted Stockman.
One of their attorneys told one of Stockmans attorneys early in the investigation that they were doing this for Lois but that attorney now swears that was never said. I personally heard him report it but now he says the opposite. It is noteworthy that the signatory on Stockmans indictment is one of the very DOJ officials copied on emails from Lois Lerner to justice officials when she was arranging meetings to organize their joint pursuit of conservative nonprofit organizations and donors including Tea Party groups.
Of course the jury would never hear anything like that. Judge Rosenthal would make sure that Court Inquisitor Lerners name would never be besmirched in her court. The court also limited defense theories presented to the jury. Many dont realize that not only can judges limit evidence and limit which witnesses get heard they can even limit which arguments get heard at all. One nice way that rarely gets any press whereby judges keep those conviction rates high is to limit reasonable defense theories altogether. Its hard for a jury to acquit on a theory when that theory cant even be presented.
Stockman was ultimately convicted on 23 out of 24 counts. Its notable the media never explains the charges because they are so complicated and arcane. On a theory of money laundering Stockman was convicted of eleven counts carrying potential 20-year prison sentences each two of them simply because Stockman moved a bank deposit from the checking to savings account for maximum interest and later back again. You wont read that in The Houston Chroniclebecause they dont know and frankly dont care. You wont read that in the conservative press because they just repeat and regurgitate new angles on the facts reported by the liberal press without any awareness of facts omitted.
On his first day in prison they denied Stockman a known diabetic his insulin and blood pressure medication. Defense counsel had brought up his diabetes to the court when the jury returned the guilty verdict and Judge Rosenthal said she didnt have authority over the Bureau of Prisons. Since then Stockman has received the prisons off-brand of medicine and when he asked for a diabetic meal they merely replaced his cornbread with white bread. Their goal is to kill him with this process. Through this process it might be as easy as just withholding medication for a few more days. Or at least by just continuing this process for a few more months.
A true conservative who fought to defend America Stockman is sitting imprisoned by the most politically corrupt DOJ and IRS in American history. Americans should be rallying around him. President Trump needs to pardon him and unleash him on the Left. The same entities who went after Stockman are the ones going after President Trump and all who are around him.
President Trump should take note of DOJs nefarious activities in Stockmans case. They reframe and rename legal activities so they sound criminal. Weve seen it in other cases such as that of Dwight and Steven Hammond who burned grassland a prescribed grass management activity to release nutrients into the soil to revitalize the land. They were charged with arson and when President Trump pardoned them were serving mandatory minimum sentences for terrorists under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
In another instance even I was threatened with wiretapping because my cell phone had a recording feature as does everyones.
In Stockmans case the government called legitimate non-profit organizations sham nonprofits" even though one of their plea bargaining key witnesses during the time he was actually cooperating with the government continued to work with the sham nonprofit" in activities that had absolutely nothing to do with Stockman and about which Stockman had no knowledge. So the nonprofit wasnt a sham at all.
When Wells Fargo moved monies from checking to savings to maximize interest in an account the government said Stockman was secretly diverting funds to multiple accounts charging him with money laundering. They insisted on referring to investigative journalism as a spy network." While they falsely claimed Stockman had a spy network this same DOJ readily accepted the products of a real spy network in the form of the Trump dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign.
Because two mobile phones were purchased the government deceptively called them burner phones" saying they were used by Stockman even though they submitted documentation showing he never used them. Still prosecutors repeatedly threw around the term burner phones so as to imply evil intent.
A key government witness in the trial worked less than one day in Stockmans office and reported on the witness stand all kinds of lies about the functioning of Stockmans congressional intern program of which those who served as interns raved. The witness could not have had insights into the program having been in the office less than a day.
Yet the court would not allow any defense witnesses who would have told the jury of their own intern experiences. Interns reported that they learned so much had tremendous opportunities to participate firsthand in government attend hearings conduct legislative research draft legislation and writing to and hosting visits by constituents.
Many elected officials victories have been due in part to expenditures of 501(c)4 organizations in elections they won. Yet with the help of a well-rehearsed plea-bargained witness the government successfully convinced jurors that such expenditures were illegal and attributable to Stockman establishing a dangerous precedent that could impact election of candidates from both parties in the future. None of the attorneys nor the judge nor jury involved in Stockmans case had any idea what a 501(c)4 organization is or what activities are legally allowed.
Because a 501(c)4 political organization spent monies in an election involving both Stockman and Cornyn the government said it was used on politics and benefitted Stockman (though he lost the race) claiming it was for personal use by Stockman though not one single penny went to him. All political types should be concerned about this as a precedent because campaigns of many candidates benefit from 501(c)4 expenditures.
Stockman served on the Science Committee for developing technologies and was the first Congressman to file a bill to protect the fledgling blockchain and cryptocurrency industry from regulation that would strangle it in the cradle. He was also the first to accept cryptocurrency campaign donations. In Congress Stockman was also a big proponent of 3-D printing nanotubes and blockchain industries.
Nothing in the world is wrong with blockchain and cryptocurrency which is a growing medium under development including by IBM Facebook and other corporations. Yet the government implied it was evil and led the jury to believe Stockmans involvement with cryptocurrency evidenced he was engaging in criminal behavior.
The governments expert witness admitted there is nothing illegal about cryptocurrency. The entire discussion in court of this subject was completely extraneous having nothing whatsoever to do with the case. Rather its purpose was to simply muddy the waters and imply Stockman had shady dealings. A celebrated champion of their industry Stockman had traveled all over the world after leaving office speaking to conferences of bankers and other professionals involved with blockchain and cryptocurrency.
It is becoming clear that the DOJ withheld documents Stockmans defense attorney requested by letter from the prosecutors. Stockman is now viewed as a whistleblower because he first exposed the presidents ransom payment to the Haqqani terrorist network for Beau Bergdahl and Hillary Clinton breaking Iran sanctions to allow steel sales to Iran by the Clinton Foundations largest donor just to mention two examples. The steel sold is the type used for nuclear bomb casings as well as centrifuges. Newsweekand The New York Timesdocumented Stockmans whistle blowing on Clintons Iran dealings.
For such actions Stockman was tried convicted shackled hand and foot and taken into protective custody in federal prison. Stockmans civil rights and due process have been violated. To demonstrate how politically motivated the case is Stockman reported that the IRS agent who arrested him and picked him up for court on March 16 2017 said from out-of-the-blue I hate the border wall." The FBI agent in the front seat commented you defeated my dads friend."
They have weaponized and abused their power with never any repercussions. If he had funds Stockman would like to offer a reward to any FBI agent willing to testify and turn over any documents evidencing the targeting of him. Page 149 of the DOJ Inspector General report shows the FBI abuses its power in politically driven decisions. There is proven animus against conservatives in the department. Mark Levin has said You have to be Helen Keller not to see the corruption at the DOJ."
The DOJs vitriolic hatred for conservatives is made abundantly clear in the emails and testimony of their departments officials as well as through the long coverup of so many DOJ wrongdoings with Donald Trump and his associates. Remember the DOJ FBI and IRS officials do not change their spots. They hate Trump supporters and if youre conservative they hate you too.
Stockman was an existential threat to Clintons election exposing her illegally allowing trade with Iran. The prosecutors had witnesses compose and rehearse their testimonies. Democrats know Stockman better than do Republicans because they know he is a threat to them.
The system is designed at every level and on all levels to dehumanize demoralize and destroy its victims. Its needlessly brutalizing. Its crushing and unjust. If they will do this to a former Congressman imagine how they steamrolled the other 183830 federal inmates those who have been under investigation and the many others to come.
Liberal Democrat and well-respected Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz has complained many times that the DOJ has criminalized political differences. If Trump doesnt call for a special prosecutor to investigate the FBI and DOJ abuses it is because we will have become a banana republic. Stockmans exposure of Obama Holder Lerner and Clinton should serve as a model for other representatives for exposing such corruption.
Stockman was a firstrate whistleblower and now hes a political prisoner. Its sad but at this time no one seems to care.
Steve Stockman former Congressman professional provocateur controversial conservative was convicted in Houston earlier this year on 23 out of 24 counts part of a 28-count indictment. During that 12-day trial former staff turned and testified against him and the federal government put on many witnesses to speak about his alleged crimes. I was a key FBI witness and as an attorney who reviewed the case and the allegations made against Stockman I carry the burden of knowing that hes completely innocent.
The challenge is to find anyone who seems to care.
Stockman is a kind of phenomenon in his part of the country. Southeast Texas had been reliably Democrat when he first won office in 1994 his third try against the then-Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jack Brooks. Brooks was a legend and had been in office longer than Stockman had been alive.
Lt. Col. Oliver North had come into Stockmans district in the 90s to help him defeat Brooks. Brooks is actually shown in the photo of LBJ being sworn into office after President Kennedys assassination. Stockman doggedly ran against him until finally dethroning him from his seat and chairmanship.
Unbeknown to Rush Limbaugh he was a key factor in Stockmans 1994 win as he helped lay several years of groundwork for the victory.
Stockman recalls laying out his and his wifes wedding invitation while listening to Limbaughs radio show in 1988 at a time Stockman was state chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas. In 1993 friends recorded Limbaughs TV shows and played them for gatherings of conservatives spearheaded by Stockman and associates.
There conservatives ate pizza and cheered Limbaugh as they rolled conservative newspapers for distribution throughout the area. Many of those folks became volunteers in Stockmans victorious 2014 campaign. Limbaughs broadcasts were instrumental in changing political attitudes of traditional Democrats in southwest Texas where Stockman was elected.
Stockman was part of the historic 104thCongress that gave Republicans their first House majority in 40 years. That group of Republicans who were elected in 1994 proclaimed Limbaugh an honorary member of their congressional class and Stockman was likely the only member of that class who had gone to Dans bake sale in Colorado the previous year. Having flown in 1993 from Texas with a friend in a twin engine plane to attend Dans bake sale Stockman recalls that on the return trip they nearly went down due to engine difficulties putting him in fear of his life.
Limbaugh even mentioned Stockman in one of his broadcasts describing a meeting between Bill Bennett in the elevator with Stockman discussing how he had defeated 42-year incumbent Jack Brooks.
Stockman lost his seat in 1996 having gotten the majority of votes but slightly under 50 percent in the November special election when a third candidate had entered the race due to Texas redistricting. He barely lost a flawed December runoff with the Democrat for whom some precincts voted with over 100 percent voter turnout. In that runoff Stockman alone received more votes than both Democrat and Republican candidates combined in each of two other Houston area runoff elections the same day.
Few know that during his campaigns in the 90s Stockman was on the cutting edge developing and pioneering campaign technology that has now become commonplace with perhaps the first microtargeting of voters use of voter attitudinal surveys to help inform voters on their issues and even a fundraising email when email was new and not at all universally used.
Stockman turned to pastors and the Christian community helping pastors organize educational gatherings called Mobilizing Morality in America" conferences with nationally known speakers including Tim LaHaye Jerry Falwell David Barton and Rick Scarborough. He had the support of gun owners. Additionally uncharacteristically for Republicans he had courted and won much of the union vote.
Working in conservative politics thereafter Stockman eventually came back to Congress with a win in 2012 staying one term until mounting a challenge to the establishment Republican incumbent Senator John Cornyn rather than running for re-election to his House seat. While in office Stockman appeared on Sean Hannitys radio show and on Fox News and Business television shows several times. Due to his newsmaking actions in 2013 and 2014 Stockman appeared on the Drudge Report reportedly more than all other members of the 113thCongress combined.
His career seemed to brilliantly flare twice once in the 90s and again with the unexpected second act punctuated by distinctive moves such as refusing to vote for re-election of then-Speaker John Boehner bringing Ted Nugent as his guest to the State of the Union address making stimulating statements to the media and trying to push the Republican caucus to be more conservative. He was a sort-of conservative populist pre-Trump who the working class could identify with.
The personal experiences that shaped him would have been made into feature films if his politics had been different. He grew up a middle-class kid who as a young adult was even homeless for a season. But he became a Christian turned his life around and served as a lawmaker in Washington all within the span of 15 years. Its the kind of fairytale we want to believe about our elected officials that anyone with ambition discipline and courage can become a political leader that you dont have to be a well-connected millionaire lawyer to be elected.
I met him through conservative politics and enjoyed helping out on his various projects. He is a man with vision passion and a commitment to the truth. He never belonged in a political world filled with disloyal mediocrities. Notably in politics I dont recall a single time he ever lied to me.
His legal problems first started back in 1994 when the FEC harassed him and deposed him as a candidate under the FECs then Assistant Counsel for Enforcement Lois Lerner. Yes; that Lois Lerner.
Then trouble arose again in 2013 with an uninformed campaign accountant. A couple of staffers wanted to pay off some campaign debts and gave the donations themselves. They were unaware that there was a Congressional rule against it and the donations were flagged by those who scrutinize campaign finance filings to harass political opponents.
Trying to fix the situation the staff attorney and accountant rationalized that it was better to say that those donations were from the staffers parents. In fact the accountant admitted on the witness stand that logging those donations in parents names was his idea not Stockmans.
In this way they made a bad problem infinitely worse taking a refundable mistaken donation and possible civil fine due to an arcane campaign rule and causing it to look purposefully deceptive in its sourcing.
The lawyers remedy for this second mistake was to make a third one and retroactively fire the staffers for the single day on which they made the donation. Stockman likely didnt know what his keystone cops were doing and the evidence says quite clearly he didnt. But hes in prison now because of the forces unleashed as a result of these relatively innocent paperwork snafus.
What never came to light in Stockmans trial was that the staffers donations were ultimately returned to them and the FEC report corrected thus cleaning the slate. Mistakes along this line and multiple corrections to get it right are not at all uncommon with FEC reports of candidates from both parties. That should have been the end of it certainly not proceeded as charges in civil court let alone as felonies in federal criminal court.
Nevertheless these transactions caught the eye of a DC watchdog" group that serves to harass conservative elected officials for minor transgressions. The penalty was an ethics referral to the Office of Congressional Ethics that then used the mistakes by those staffers to vacuum up information from Stockmans office including unrelated items that could be referred for criminal prosecution. Once they had their teeth into your office there was no limit on what they can request.
When you take up years of communications between a party any party youre likely to find things out of context to see things in a narrative frame that looks unflattering. The government spent over five years and at least four federal grand juries investigating Stockman (one in DC one in Baltimore and two in Houston). They called 36 witnesses over 12 days and subpoenaed hundreds of documents rushing the case once indictment had been secured so as to push through their desired verdict.
Their subpoenas were for all communications and everything referred to in legal circles as global discovery" for over five years of communications across many names and corporate entities. Just in discovery production of relevant and irrelevant documentation the government gathered over 250000 documents. To my knowledge the defense didnt look at a single one because they didnt have the time.
The discovery abuse that accompanies a federal investigation terrifies the participants into acquiescence to the government merely by its unlimited scope. The terror of the process also brings into focus any sins and transgressions ever made by the potential witness. When the panopticon sees all it will find the wrongs it wants to selectively punish.
The scale of resources arrayed against a federal defendant is hard to contextualize. On one side is a government that has total information awareness the ability to subpoena email providers banks and intimidate anyone who steps in their way. For the defense you hope a judge agrees with your discovery subpoena upon a recipient whose participation is essentially voluntary. Enforcing defense discovery rights is essentially nonexistent in federal practice. Youre reliant on working with whatever the government has collected and benevolently decides to offer to the defense. Theres no way of knowing what they didnt turn over. Theres also no effective way to badger information that might prove your innocence.
What they found in the trove of Stockmans life were two nonprofit organizations one that he fundraised for in the years prior to running for office. I was an attorney for one of them. But the charges against Stockman turned on donations $800000 of which was given after he was in office. He had legally drawn a salary from the $115000 given in 2012 when he worked for the nonprofit before going to Congress. Of the monies given in 2013 or 2014 not a dime ever went to Stockman. The four gifts were from two individuals the now-deceased Stanford Rothschild a financier and art collector from Baltimore and Richard Uihlein the billionaireowner of the Uline office supply business. The government claimed that both were essentially defrauded into making donations to nonprofits. While the donations involved totaled $915000 the government and press continued to repeat the amount of $1.2 million less money that Hillary reflected in tax returns as other expenses" of the Clinton Foundation nonprofit.
Neither donor had complained to anyone nor asked for their money back. The FBI just showed up asking questions about large donations to nonprofits and causing donors to think they may have done something wrong; asking questions that might make billionaires nervous. No one had a problem with how the funds were spent until those became a leverage point for the government to pressure its prey. They werent interested in the billionaires anyway just as they werent interested in the accountant turned states witness who set this train in motion. But they still needed those people in order to accomplish their mission.
Stockmans wife Patti observed that her husband loved both donor Uihlein and his father and would have never acted to cheat or defraud them. In fact Stockman considered Uihleins father as a mentor.
However once the feds have a trove of information its just a matter of document review and creativity to find something to charge. The popular Licensed to Liebook by former Justice official Sidney Powell goes over the wide authority federal criminal prosecutors have in finding charges to pursue. Anything looks like mail fraud. Anything looks like wire fraud. It just has to touch the mail and cash a check for underlying conduct that can be made to look salacious or untoward. And thats where they knew they had Stockman.
The DOJ was so eager to try Stockmans case in the press that although the federal complaint record authorizing Stockmans arrest was sealed they deliberately broke the law and leaked the situation because reporter Phil Archer of Houstons NBC News was present to report on March 16 2017 when Stockman appeared before a federal magistrate the day after his arrest. Prosecutors pick and choose their use of and respect for sealed records. Just days before Stockmans trial ended in April 2018 the prosecutors filed something with the court under seal and to this day even Stockmans attorneys do not know what was filed.
Stockmans real crime is that hes neither rich nor part of the political establishment. Hes a visionary who doesnt effectively manage the details. He doesnt lie break the law or hurt people but his ADHD and non-detailed oversight of bureaucratic compliance made him an easy target. To allege an underlying fraud to sustain these charges federal authorities needed to weave a sordid tale.
State fraud accusations have standards but federal ones dont. Federal fraud is whatever prosecutors say it is and here they said it was fraudulent solicitation" in the request for funds from a donor because those funds werent spent on a proposed house for training and housing young people that was just one of numerous items in the Congressional Freedom Foundation proposal that led to his gift.
But there were interns a lot of them. A record number in fact. And a lot of the funds were spent for training and educating young folks. The Houston Chroniclewhich Ive caught purposefully lying about this case on repeated occasions and whose response to corrections is to complain that the news cycle has passed" specifically quoted an intern coordinator and recruiter as saying the intern work environment was horrific" but this is a guy who quit before day two.
According to the Government the whole thing was fraud because the money raised toward the nearly $2.5 million Congressional Freedom Foundation proposal was not spent toward the proposed $1.3 million house for interns but rather went for other legitimate nonprofit expenditures like salaries educational endeavors and additional fundraising activities for the organization.
Interestingly an independent accounting analysis subsequent to trial of the evidence provided by prosecution shows not one single cent of the donations going to Stockman personally after he went to Congress. The government spent days of the trial examining Stockmans personal expenses from his earnings in employment with of the non-profits for which he worked prior to his taking office. After he was in Congress he didnt want to accept income from other sources so Stockman never took any pay whatsoever from the nonprofit donations that came in after he was in office.
His and his wifes modest home is a 1400 square foot house and Stockman drives a 12-year-old minivan with over 100000 miles on it. There was no relevance whatsoever of the governments presentation of years of Stockmans pre-congressional personal expenses. Prosecutors didnt bother to show jurors Stockmans personal expenses during his congressional years when the majority of the donations in question were made. The reason they didnt cover it was because his personal finances werent impacted by the 2013-2014 donations.
Cases like these where the facts are so far out of the lane for the indicted conduct rely upon a judge who can dismiss these charges early on and can prevent a jury from ever reviewing a case where they might jail someone famous just for the schadenfreude of sending a legislator to prison.
Sadly there was no such intervention that would save Stockman or even slow misapplication of laws. Judge Lee Rosenthal had pretty unveiled contempt for Stockman. To my knowledge she did not sustain a single motion or request by the defense. At one point during an argument I was presenting to her in court she was making obvious non-verbal cues such as rolling her eyes and laughing at my argument quietly just feet away from me. However those werent captured on the written court reporters record so I started reading her gestures into the record for posterity.
This is the state of justice in federal courts: only her shame in possibly being caught by someone for acting so wildly inappropriately so laughable the concept of justice and fairness in her court that I was able to at least stop her from muted laughing at defense-oriented arguments for that one day in that one moment. She was never going to do anything but rubber stamp Stockmans prison sentence.
Our justice system is set up to provide bulwarks and checks at every point in the system. Every part of the process has an individual who decides to move forward and has the discretion to stop its advance but in practice no one does relying on the validation of the other people in that process to rationalize their abdication of responsibility. No one was going to stop Stockmans indictment and no one was going to presume him innocent as most Americans mistakenly believe our judicial system does.
Ruffling many Republican feathers Stockman had made what many considered a quixotic campaign for Senate by filing against notable establishment Republican John Cornyn. While he was outspent 10000 to 1 he brought the entrenched Cornyn down to only 59 percent of the primary vote. Subsequently because Texas is Republican the incumbent senator won the general election over his Democrat opponent. Stockman was then out of office but not out of trouble.
The Office of Congressional Ethics through which Stockmans case first passed was set up by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in March 2008 and regularly serves as the precursor to litigation. Staffed with former federal prosecutors they primp criminal cases under the auspices of ethics. From this office under the guise of responding to ethics" complaints the office can vacuum up emails testimony and information that can then be handed off to the Justice Department for prosecution even on unrelated charges to the original complaints. That process once started has no actual end.
Its a very neat work-around to the protections in the judicial system and the OCE heavily pursues conservative congressmen. Its no surprise that the House Republicans tried to get rid of this office early on in 2017 but the misunderstood effort was ultimately stopped when President Trump questioned in a tweet the logic of doing away with it.
Stockman was the fighter that many voters were demanding. But his actions repeatedly raised the ire of the Obama administration when he signed onto legislation to impeach then Attorney General Eric Holder announced his willingness to consider impeachment of President Obama exposed Hillary Clintons violation of the Iran sanctions and called for the arrest of Lois Lerner for her contempt of Congress. These sorts of bold actions put not only a spotlight on Stockman as a congressman willing to stand out but they put a target on him with the Obama administration. The DOJs Eric Holder Lois Lerner and Obama wanted to make an example out of him.
The process keeps pursuing prey time and time again but the vanity and fear of those politicians ensnared by OCE facing a multi-year federal criminal investigation is not something anyone wants to admit to. OCE leaks identities of people they investigate" and then those people either often resign to avoid further harassment or spend a few years being investigated sapping any financial reserves they have on expensive DC attorneys. It functions as a perfect internal control mechanism for representatives who fall afoul of leadership.
In private several former members of Congress will admit that the process caused them to leave Congress fearful that they would be crushed by this system and fearful that it would restart if they were to publicly oppose it. Only the very wealthy can afford to stay in Congress and fight the system.
A referral into the criminal system after all is usually fatal to ones finances and political career. The federal judicial system is merely a paperwork process to imprisonment. With 95 percent of cases pleading guilty and of those few that go to trial 95 percent are convicted only the Soviet Union could boast better prosecutorial success rates and even then only by the slimmest of margins.
One might be tempted to indulge the fantasy that perhaps the federal prosecutors only choose good cases and are merely very selective. Yet even the most famous federal prosecutions are so fraught with error that even the prosecutors have some tinge of conscience about what theyd done after the fact. In the Bundy prosecution it was only the admission of a former prosecutor who alerted litigants to misdeeds by the government.
In the prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens it was only after Attorney General Eric Holder weighed in to have the guilty verdicts set aside that one federal prosecutor in the Public Integrity" Unit Nicholas Marsh had the tables turned on him for once. Under the pressure he regularly put citizens under Marsh decided to kill himself rather than face an inevitable prosecution. Of course though the misdeeds in that case were handled by mere probation instead of incarceration.
This process and the same Public Integrity section of the DOJ took in all of Stockmans emails information and communications. For five years the DOJ spent an estimated $15-20 million dollars looking into every single email he sent or received and every single text message sent or received. There were FBI tails" to watch Stockman in Washington Houston and his international travel. Friends family donors and allies were sent subpoenas that covered everything over five years. The government sucked in via subpoena every single item about Stockman from January 2010 through the date it was issued in most cases over five years. It was the absolute definition of a fishing expedition.
Fraud is the best allegation possible when federal prosecutors are going after someone. Not only is there no standard of federal fraud but it can mean anything. In the federal systems model jury instruction for the Fifth Circuit where Stockman was convicted there is no model explanation of fraud. The government is encouraged to invent something that sounds good. Judges are encouraged to make it up to fit the record because frauds can come in many stripes. Normally a crime has elements certain factual requirements in order to make sure a charged crime matches the actual facts. There is a common law standard of fraud and most states have elements but the federal courts do not they let prosecutors and judges make them up as they go along.
The common law elements of fraud have five parts 1) that a statement is made 2) which is false 3) that is significant 4) that the speaker knew was false when it was made and 5) that the person who was hurt relied upon. If any of those things is not present then a conviction under that crime isnt proper. Its not a fraud if the statement made is true for example. Its not a fraud if the statement made was minor and insignificant. Its also not fraud under the common law if the person who heard the statement didnt rely upon it to make their decision.
Unfortunately for Stockman common law isnt practiced in federal court.
Prosecutorial misconduct exists on many levels and its often difficult to prove and even difficult to uncover. In the Stockman case as but one personal example an FBI agent put on file a report of child in distress" with my local police in order to generate a visit to our home by Child Protective Services notorious in Texas for being heavy-handed and potentially taking children away from parents. When the officer made the report my wife actually heard him say to the dispatcher Thanks for helping me out."
If he actually thought there was a child in distress of course he could have and should have just busted the door down to help that child. But thats not what he wanted he wanted it put into the record so that it would be a huge problem for us for a mere phone call from him. It was zero risk and huge reward for an agent of the prosecution who sought to exert maximum pressure on people associated with Stockmans defense. When I brought this up to the trial court they said it was irrelevant and hearsay even though theres a 911 phone call record from FBI Agent Preston Joy available as a government record.
Who else got pressured? I dont know. I know that one major witness was out of the country and came back for unexplained reasons. I know one witness who is accused of actually soliciting the funds and who actually wrote the proposal in question pled guilty immediately even though his proposal and the nonprofit were totally legitimate. Theres a reason 95 percent of people indicted take a plea bargain because 95 percent of those who opt to go to trial end up convicted. Furthermore only 5.6 percent of those who seek appellate relief for their criminal convictions get any relief whatsoever. The odds say that equal justice under law" in the federal courts has an effective 100 percent incarceration rate.
I know that for the primary federal prosecutors in this case Robert Heberle and Ryan Ellersick there will only be praise approbation and commendations. No one will care that their target was outspent 200:1 or that the witnesses allowed by the judge at trial were 18:1 in favor of the prosecution or that they effectively buried the defense in irrelevant documents so they couldnt present a defense. Their careers will advance regardless of guilt or innocence they won a conviction against a Congressman after all.
No one cared about the truth they cared about the narrative. It was less important as to how things factually were than how they could be politically framed in the moment. If you can get away with the lie to exert maximum political and personal damage on someone it doesnt matter if a correction gets printed later or if an appeal succeeds; all that the masses remember is the original hit. And the Feds know that.
Lois Lerner knew how to land hits. She knew how to be a bureaucrat. Her resume reads like a swamp creature slithering her way through the chambers of power in the Deep State. She came to attention as the head of charities for the Internal Revenue Service called Exempt Organizations" by the government. Before that she worked at the Federal Election Commission as Associate General Counsel and before that she worked at the Department of Justice in what has become the Public Integrity Section the department that prosecuted Stockman.
One of their attorneys told one of Stockmans attorneys early in the investigation that they were doing this for Lois but that attorney now swears that was never said. I personally heard him report it but now he says the opposite. It is noteworthy that the signatory on Stockmans indictment is one of the very DOJ officials copied on emails from Lois Lerner to justice officials when she was arranging meetings to organize their joint pursuit of conservative nonprofit organizations and donors including Tea Party groups.
Of course the jury would never hear anything like that. Judge Rosenthal would make sure that Court Inquisitor Lerners name would never be besmirched in her court. The court also limited defense theories presented to the jury. Many dont realize that not only can judges limit evidence and limit which witnesses get heard they can even limit which arguments get heard at all. One nice way that rarely gets any press whereby judges keep those conviction rates high is to limit reasonable defense theories altogether. Its hard for a jury to acquit on a theory when that theory cant even be presented.
Stockman was ultimately convicted on 23 out of 24 counts. Its notable the media never explains the charges because they are so complicated and arcane. On a theory of money laundering Stockman was convicted of eleven counts carrying potential 20-year prison sentences each two of them simply because Stockman moved a bank deposit from the checking to savings account for maximum interest and later back again. You wont read that in The Houston Chroniclebecause they dont know and frankly dont care. You wont read that in the conservative press because they just repeat and regurgitate new angles on the facts reported by the liberal press without any awareness of facts omitted.
On his first day in prison they denied Stockman a known diabetic his insulin and blood pressure medication. Defense counsel had brought up his diabetes to the court when the jury returned the guilty verdict and Judge Rosenthal said she didnt have authority over the Bureau of Prisons. Since then Stockman has received the prisons off-brand of medicine and when he asked for a diabetic meal they merely replaced his cornbread with white bread. Their goal is to kill him with this process. Through this process it might be as easy as just withholding medication for a few more days. Or at least by just continuing this process for a few more months.
A true conservative who fought to defend America Stockman is sitting imprisoned by the most politically corrupt DOJ and IRS in American history. Americans should be rallying around him. President Trump needs to pardon him and unleash him on the Left. The same entities who went after Stockman are the ones going after President Trump and all who are around him.
President Trump should take note of DOJs nefarious activities in Stockmans case. They reframe and rename legal activities so they sound criminal. Weve seen it in other cases such as that of Dwight and Steven Hammond who burned grassland a prescribed grass management activity to release nutrients into the soil to revitalize the land. They were charged with arson and when President Trump pardoned them were serving mandatory minimum sentences for terrorists under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
In another instance even I was threatened with wiretapping because my cell phone had a recording feature as does everyones.
In Stockmans case the government called legitimate non-profit organizations sham nonprofits" even though one of their plea bargaining key witnesses during the time he was actually cooperating with the government continued to work with the sham nonprofit" in activities that had absolutely nothing to do with Stockman and about which Stockman had no knowledge. So the nonprofit wasnt a sham at all.
When Wells Fargo moved monies from checking to savings to maximize interest in an account the government said Stockman was secretly diverting funds to multiple accounts charging him with money laundering. They insisted on referring to investigative journalism as a spy network." While they falsely claimed Stockman had a spy network this same DOJ readily accepted the products of a real spy network in the form of the Trump dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign.
Because two mobile phones were purchased the government deceptively called them burner phones" saying they were used by Stockman even though they submitted documentation showing he never used them. Still prosecutors repeatedly threw around the term burner phones so as to imply evil intent.
A key government witness in the trial worked less than one day in Stockmans office and reported on the witness stand all kinds of lies about the functioning of Stockmans congressional intern program of which those who served as interns raved. The witness could not have had insights into the program having been in the office less than a day.
Yet the court would not allow any defense witnesses who would have told the jury of their own intern experiences. Interns reported that they learned so much had tremendous opportunities to participate firsthand in government attend hearings conduct legislative research draft legislation and writing to and hosting visits by constituents.
Many elected officials victories have been due in part to expenditures of 501(c)4 organizations in elections they won. Yet with the help of a well-rehearsed plea-bargained witness the government successfully convinced jurors that such expenditures were illegal and attributable to Stockman establishing a dangerous precedent that could impact election of candidates from both parties in the future. None of the attorneys nor the judge nor jury involved in Stockmans case had any idea what a 501(c)4 organization is or what activities are legally allowed.
Because a 501(c)4 political organization spent monies in an election involving both Stockman and Cornyn the government said it was used on politics and benefitted Stockman (though he lost the race) claiming it was for personal use by Stockman though not one single penny went to him. All political types should be concerned about this as a precedent because campaigns of many candidates benefit from 501(c)4 expenditures.
Stockman served on the Science Committee for developing technologies and was the first Congressman to file a bill to protect the fledgling blockchain and cryptocurrency industry from regulation that would strangle it in the cradle. He was also the first to accept cryptocurrency campaign donations. In Congress Stockman was also a big proponent of 3-D printing nanotubes and blockchain industries.
Nothing in the world is wrong with blockchain and cryptocurrency which is a growing medium under development including by IBM Facebook and other corporations. Yet the government implied it was evil and led the jury to believe Stockmans involvement with cryptocurrency evidenced he was engaging in criminal behavior.
The governments expert witness admitted there is nothing illegal about cryptocurrency. The entire discussion in court of this subject was completely extraneous having nothing whatsoever to do with the case. Rather its purpose was to simply muddy the waters and imply Stockman had shady dealings. A celebrated champion of their industry Stockman had traveled all over the world after leaving office speaking to conferences of bankers and other professionals involved with blockchain and cryptocurrency.
It is becoming clear that the DOJ withheld documents Stockmans defense attorney requested by letter from the prosecutors. Stockman is now viewed as a whistleblower because he first exposed the presidents ransom payment to the Haqqani terrorist network for Beau Bergdahl and Hillary Clinton breaking Iran sanctions to allow steel sales to Iran by the Clinton Foundations largest donor just to mention two examples. The steel sold is the type used for nuclear bomb casings as well as centrifuges. Newsweekand The New York Timesdocumented Stockmans whistle blowing on Clintons Iran dealings.
For such actions Stockman was tried convicted shackled hand and foot and taken into protective custody in federal prison. Stockmans civil rights and due process have been violated. To demonstrate how politically motivated the case is Stockman reported that the IRS agent who arrested him and picked him up for court on March 16 2017 said from out-of-the-blue I hate the border wall." The FBI agent in the front seat commented you defeated my dads friend."
They have weaponized and abused their power with never any repercussions. If he had funds Stockman would like to offer a reward to any FBI agent willing to testify and turn over any documents evidencing the targeting of him. Page 149 of the DOJ Inspector General report shows the FBI abuses its power in politically driven decisions. There is proven animus against conservatives in the department. Mark Levin has said You have to be Helen Keller not to see the corruption at the DOJ."
The DOJs vitriolic hatred for conservatives is made abundantly clear in the emails and testimony of their departments officials as well as through the long coverup of so many DOJ wrongdoings with Donald Trump and his associates. Remember the DOJ FBI and IRS officials do not change their spots. They hate Trump supporters and if youre conservative they hate you too.
Stockman was an existential threat to Clintons election exposing her illegally allowing trade with Iran. The prosecutors had witnesses compose and rehearse their testimonies. Democrats know Stockman better than do Republicans because they know he is a threat to them.
The system is designed at every level and on all levels to dehumanize demoralize and destroy its victims. Its needlessly brutalizing. Its crushing and unjust. If they will do this to a former Congressman imagine how they steamrolled the other 183830 federal inmates those who have been under investigation and the many others to come.
Liberal Democrat and well-respected Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz has complained many times that the DOJ has criminalized political differences. If Trump doesnt call for a special prosecutor to investigate the FBI and DOJ abuses it is because we will have become a banana republic. Stockmans exposure of Obama Holder Lerner and Clinton should serve as a model for other representatives for exposing such corruption.
Stockman was a firstrate whistleblower and now hes a political prisoner. Its sad but at this time no one seems to care.