WakeForestRanger
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So the foreperson had purportedly "negative" posts about Trump and/or Stone, and therefore Stone's lawyers are arguing that she had a bias. If only there was a system before impaneling a jury to ask them questions to determine if they may have a bias. And if only there was some way to view social media posts of people when you have their name.
Alas, the poor defense team was just left at the mercy of this woman.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/clint-lorance-platoon-afghanistan/Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road.
A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed.
Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump.
His troops have suffered a very different fate.
Depression
Fatal car crash
Shooting death
Cancer
"The Cursed Platoon"
The Afghan men were about 150 to 200 yards from the U.S. position when they were killed. To reach Lorance and his troops, they would have had to scale multiple shoulder-high mud walls.
Zach Thomas, who had been standing just yards from Lorance when he gave the order to fire, was driving to community college in 2017 when he heard Hannity talking about the Lorance case on the radio.
“My blood just started boiling,” he recalled.
Thomas had spent his last day in the Army testifying against his former platoon leader. He was just 18 when he left for Afghanistan, and like many in the unit, his return home had been difficult. He drank to blunt his PTSD and depression. Two of his sergeants were so worried about him that they let him move out of the barracks and spend his last two months living at their house. His plan after the Army was to forget about Afghanistan and start a new life in his hometown of Crosby, Tex.
“I’m a big fan, but y’all are being led the wrong way,” he told a producer for the show. “This isn’t some innocent guy.” The producer asked him if he knew about the biometric data Lorance’s lawyers had uncovered.
“I don’t know about any of that information, but I was there and these people were not enemy combatants,” he said. He could tell he wasn’t convincing the producer so he gave her McGuinness’s cellphone number and urged her to call him. She talked with McGuinness as well but never invited him on the show.
The 1st Platoon soldiers were still filtering home from Twist’s funeral when Pete Hegseth, a “Fox & Friends” co-anchor who had advocated on Lorance’s behalf, tweeted that Lorance’s pardon was “imminent.”
The actual release came two weeks later on Nov. 15.
“It’s done. It’s a political move,” one of the 1st Platoon soldiers wrote on the group’s private Facebook page. “Time to move on.”
Ayres, who had skipped all five of the platoon’s funerals, agreed. “Not worth any of our time,” he wrote. “What matters is that everyone that matters knows he is a piece of s---. Let’s move on and enjoy life.”
For McGuinness it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t bear the thought that Lorance was being hailed as a hero by Trump and others, while soldiers like Twist were being forgotten. “I’ve buried people that struggled with what happened, and whether through their own hands or their actions, they’re gone,” he said. “I’m not going to sit quietly while he gets paraded around and they’re not recognized.”
He texted with Gray, who wasn’t on Facebook.
Lucas Gray
Fuck it all. The one reprieve we had is gone.
Mike McGuinness
I feel so shitty right now.
Lucas Gray
I'm going to drink until I can sleep.
Mike McGuinness
I might do the same.
Others in the platoon argued on social media with pro-Trump friends, who insisted Lorance was innocent. "You realize I was f---ing THERE, right?" one soldier wrote to a fellow veteran. "Like you realize I was one of the godd--- WITNESSES who testified, right?!"
https://www.justsecurity.org/68900/is-the-pardon-power-unlimited/
Good article on the limits of the pardon power.
If Biden wins, can we make both parties swear to never cite WH precedent set from 2017-2020 for future administrations?
Trump's stank is going to be around for long enough in the Judiciary, already. Thanks, Mitch.