Imagine if the president worked as hard to save all of us from #coronavirus as he does to corruptly spare his friends from prison. https://t.co/dhI3aKg1Gf

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) July 11, 2020

On NPR this morning, sadly, Scott Simon and Ryan Lucas mostly trotted out the president's line. Stone was a victim of “the Russia hoax.” Stone “was treated unfairly.” He was “charged by overzealous prosecutors” pursing a case that “never should have existed.” Democrats object. Etc.

You know: The usual partisan stuff.

They never say what I would say: Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress and the FBI on behalf of Donald Trump, had his 40-month sentence commuted by Donald Trump. That's how I would begin. Parse it from there. 

The New York Times writes about the 11 people Trump has pardoned or whose sentences have been commuted by him. It's mostly the rich and famous, and cronies, with a few black folks tossed in.

Elsewhere, Jeffrey Toobin writes about how this makes Trump worse than Nixon, since when Nixon had a chance to pardon, say, E. Howard Hunt, he didn't even think of going there. To me, it's less Trump/Nixon than today's bankrupt GOP vs. the GOP of 1973 that still had some upstanding members. It's also the press. If they don't bury the lede, like NPR, they are wholly partisan like Fox News.

Mitt Romney gets it anyway. He describes it better than NPR did.