Donald Trump Found A Black Woman To Blame For Roger Stone's Crimes

Oh what a very big surprise.

Y'all see this tweet from El Shithole this morning?

Oh great, the "fore person" [ sic ] of the jury was BIASSSSSS, by which Trump means she is a Democrat, and are Democrats even allowed to serve on juries in Trump's America? You won't be shocked to learn that the latest subject of Trump's outrage, and Fox News's outrage, the foreperson of the Roger Stone jury, is a black woman, because that's on brand for Trump and Fox News.

Now, please forget that there are 12 people on a jury, and that all must agree on a verdict before rendering it. (That is what "unanimous" means.) Obviously, this one alleged Trump-hating black lady #RIGGED it against Stone, and by extension Trump. That is just how things work, if you are as much of a misogynist pig racist as Donald Trump is.

But wait, let's back up for a second, for Wonkette has some local news context for you!

If you are a regular Wonkette reader/adoring fan, you are probably aware that this particular Wonkette writing at you is a Southern creature, specifically a Memphis creature. And the royal "we" is pretty plugged in in this city. (Like, we are really popular.) So on Wednesday, we noticed it when half our Memphis Facebook friends started reposting a statement from a woman named Tomeka Hart, coming forward to say that she was the foreperson on the Stone jury, and expressing her support for the four prosecutors on the Stone case who up and quit in protest when Attorney General Bill Barr did Trump's dirty work and asked for a reduced sentence, after Trump whined that the original recommended sentence for Stone, who was found guilty on seven counts by 12 jurors, was just too many years .

You see, Tomeka Hart is one of us, or at least she was until she moved to DC. (She is still one of us. It is a Memphis rule.) If you are anywhere near politics or activism in this city, you know her name even if you have never personally met her. She was president of the school board. She ran a primary against currently serving Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen. The Memphis people on Facebook reposting her statement are using words like "hero" and "badass."

Here, in full, is Hart's statement, which she posted alongside a Washington Post   op-ed from November written by one of her fellow jurors, Seth Cousins:

I have kept my silence for months. Initially, it was for my safety. Then, I decided to remain silent out of fear of politicizing the matter.

But I can't keep quiet any longer.

I want to stand up for Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed, Michael Marando, and Jonathan Kravis--the prosecutors on the Roger Stone trial who have all resigned from the case in response to the DOJ's interference with their sentencing recommendation.

I'm standing up for them now because I was a juror on the case. In fact, I was the foreperson.

I am sharing the November 22, 2019 op-ed of Seth Cousins, another juror--and not just because he said this: "My favorite person on the jury was an African American woman from Tennessee." ☺️

Seth perfectly articulated my sentiments. I couldn't have written a better piece--so I share his. I admired his bravery in speaking out so soon after the trial. Read Seth's piece please.

I wasn't ready. There had already been attempts at finding out who I was. Threats to expose my identity. For a moment I was afraid.

But I don't live in fear. It is not my nature to be silent.

As Seth asserts, "We did not convict Stone based on his political beliefs or his expression of those beliefs. We did not convict him of being intemperate or acting boorishly. We convicted him of obstructing a congressional investigation, of lying in five specific ways during his sworn congressional testimony and of tampering with a witness in that investigation."

The prosecutors who have now resigned did a masterful job of laying out every element of every charge, backed with ample evidence. As foreperson, I made sure we went through every element, of every charge, matching the evidence presented in the case that led us to return a conviction of guilty on all 7 counts.

It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors. They acted with the utmost intelligence, integrity, and respect for our system of justice.

For that, I wanted to speak up for them and ask you to join me in thanking them for their service.

Well damn said, and thank you, Tomeka Hart, for speaking up.

What Hart described is what jurors are supposed to do. They consider all the evidence presented to them, and they all together decide whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. In this case, it was guilty on all counts. We are sure that in Trump's addled racist brain, Tomeka Hart personally forced every juror to agree with her using some kind of black lady dark arts, but Occam's Razor tells us that's not what happened.

And now, for her bravery in speaking out, but also for — this is important — DOING HER FUCKING DUTY AS A CITIZEN WHO GOT CALLED FOR JURY DUTY TO RENDER IMPARTIAL JUSTICE, Tomeka Hart is in the crosshairs of the MAGA cult and its associated media organs, related to a case where the now-convicted defendant got in trouble during the trial for literally posting a picture on Instagram of the judge, Amy Berman Jackson, next to some crosshairs.

Anyway, you know how the MAGA Fox News Daily Caller Tertiary Syphilis Swamp works. It doesn't matter where the virus starts, it metastasizes within hours, to the point that all of a sudden, hordes of morons have suddenly forgotten how juries work and are out for revenge on behalf of their golden shitlord.

Law&Crime collected some very stupid tweets from deteriorated legal minds like Rudy Giuliani, Alan Dershowitz, and Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano, who seems to have lost his nut again:

This should be investigated. If you look at Tomeka Hart’s site you will see almost all tweets are censored for sens… https: //t.co/vhX8CwagP1

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@Rudy W. Giuliani) 1581603694.0 

All civil libertarians who care about non partisan justice should support a new trial for Roger Stone based on this… https: //t.co/fx7o9IPrvv

— Alan Dershowitz (@Alan Dershowitz) 1581609432.0 

From there, you move toward the rings of Outer Wingnuttia, where it gets stupider:

Oh wow. I'm on the social media profile of this "juror," and she's a radical, far left-wing activist. By identifyi… https: //t.co/7hOP56mb43

— Mike Cernovich (@Mike Cernovich) 1581554119.0 

Wait, what are they mad about? Oh yeah, they are mad that Tomeka Hart is a Democrat, but not only that, a politically active Democrat. And she said so right on Twitter! Are they accusing her of concealing who she was so she could be some kind of stealth juror to go in to Roger Stone's trial and end up ... agreeing with all the rest of her jurors? No, it's not that, her Twitter is public.

Noted smart law person Bradley Moss told Law&Crime that if there was some problem with Hart's alleged BIASSSSSSS, then maybe a decent lawyer might raise that during voir dire , except for how being a Democrat doesn't actually disqualify a person from serving on a jury where the defendant is a Republican:

"Holding political views opposed to the criminal defendant is not an automatic barrier to serving on a jury," national security attorney Bradley P. Moss told Law&Crime. "If the Stone legal team failed to do basic due diligence during voir dire and didn't challenge Ms. Hart's selection at that time, that is on them, not the government. These social
media posts and records of political campaigns are a matter of public record: this was not rocket science."

That is a slightly more polite way of calling Stone's lawyers dipshits. Of course Law&Crime also notes that the idea of jurors having opinions about Trump actually came up quite a bit during jury selection, and that Judge Amy Berman Jackson had to keep reminding everyone that having political opinions does not actually preclude jurors from doing fair justice.

(Hey remember the MAGA juror who voted to convict Paul Manafort on 18 of 18 counts in Virginia, except for he was only convicted on 11 of 18, because of one dimwit who actually was not the same MAGA juror? That's how this shit is supposed to work! We still commend you for your service, MAGA Manafort juror!)

What's happening here, in true autocratic fashion, is that Trump and his mouthbreathing hordes believe anyone who would express opinions against Trump out loud should not allowed to serve on such a jury in the first place, because in the Shit Kingdom Trump is trying so desperately to create, all citizens would defer to the wishes of Dear Leader, and Dear Leader wishes for his buddy Roger with the weirdly shaped head to be TOTALLY EXONERATED from WITCH HUNT.

Also this:

Trump is just trying to add another excuse for his pardon of #RogerStone. Problem is, this juror was vetted durin… https: //t.co/d0fhOrbhOs

— Katie S. Phang (@Katie S. Phang) 1581604485.0 

BUT! BUT! BUT! SHE TWEETED VERY MEAN STUFF!

Tomeka Hart was mean to Trump AND to Roll Tide in one tweet! BIASSSSSSSSSS!

We are kinda pissed about this one, because though Tomeka Hart is not our best friend — we are pretty sure we have shook her hand at a fundraiser many years ago and lived in the same neighborhood at one point? — as a Memphian, this is still close to home. Of course, if Trump's goal here was to piss off an already pissed off American city full of voters who already hate his fuckin' ass, then mission accomplished. We'll see you at the polls.

As for the rest of us, be glad we've still got people like Tomeka Hart AND that MAGA Manafort lady, who know how to do their duty as jurors when they are called upon to do so. That's one thing Donald Trump hasn't managed to fuck up yet.

[ Law&Crime ]

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