Posted on 05/15/2019 10:03:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a full pardon for former media mogul Conrad Black, who was convicted in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice and spent 3-1/2 years in prison.
Black, 74, a Canadian-born British citizen, once ran an international newspaper empire that included the Chicago Sun-Times, Britain’s Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post.
“Lord Black’s case has attracted broad support from many high-profile individuals who have vigorously vouched for his exceptional character,” the White House said in a statement announcing the pardon.
It said Black had made “tremendous contributions to business,” had written books on history and served as a tutor while in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I’m almost getting tired of all this winning!!!
Don't wimp out now! We're just getting started. :)
Finally, Black is a singular prose stylist of what in the ancient world would be called the Asiatic, or florid and decorative, style—multisyllabic and sometime near archaic vocabulary, ornate imagery, melodic prose rhythms, diverse syntax, and classical tropes of deliberate understatement, juxtapositions of Latinate and Anglo-Saxon words, and plentiful metaphors and similes. In the modern world, few in English write (or can write) any more like Edward Gibbon or Winston Churchill, but Black does so effortlessly and with precision. So it is often a treat to read an Isocrates or Cicero in modern English.
Fascinating read on Conrad Black.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black
Odd fellow. And the Canadian powers that be don’t like him.
This is a really weird pardon that deserves some research.
Anyone game?
On 30 June 2011, Black published an article for the National Review Online that provided his scathing view of the legal case, detailing it as a miscarriage of justice and an “unaccountable and often lawless prosecution”. Seth Lipsky, in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal that ran on 28 June 2011, called the verdict against Black “head-scratching”, noting that Black was found not guilty of the most serious charges brought against him. Lipsky asked why Black was denied a retrial by jury as to whether he had committed pecuniary fraud after the Supreme Court unanimously found that Judge St. Eve’s instructions to the jury were “incorrect”, which led to two of the three fraud counts ultimately being vacated. In the end, one fraud conviction and a count of obstruction were allowed to stand.
Black’s motion that the last remaining counts of conviction be vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct and his claim that he had been denied the right to have the defense counsel of his choice were denied in February 2013, along with his request for an evidentiary hearing. Black continues to maintain his innocence, and has likened the United States justice system to that of North Korea. Black has publicly stated that he is proud to have been “sent to prison for crimes I would never dream of committing, for having fought it out as well as anyone could, and for making the best I could of a bad situation.”
The obstruction count related to Black and his chauffeur removing boxes of documents from Hollinger offices in Toronto on June 9, 2005, contrary to a court order that prohibited removal.[11] Black contested the obstruction count on the grounds that he was obeying an eviction notice,[12] that he knew he was being filmed because he had installed the security cameras which filmed him, that he had already provided copies of every document prosecutors had asked for, and that not a single commercially relevant document in those boxes was not already possessed by prosecutors.
THE REINCARCERATION OF CONRAD BLACK
by Mark Steyn
https://www.steynonline.com/4209/the-reincarceration-of-conrad-black
From that:
Judge St Eve’s decision is appalling. In my weekend column, I write about “nation-building” at home and abroad. Federal justice shares with those subjects what is the defining characteristic of US Government in the early 21st century — grotesque excess and an utter lack of proportion.
Mark will almost certainly have something to say about Trump’s pardon.
Link wasn’t working. Here is a link:
Here’s more from Steyn on this case from a Hugh Hewitt interview. Section on the trial starts about halfway down the page. In general, it was a case of severe prosecutorial overreach and dirty dealing to get a conservative.
Mark “Perry Mason” Steyn from the Chicago trial of Conrad Black
https://www.hughhewitt.com/mark-perry-mason-steyn-from-the-chicago-trial-of-conrad-black/
Conrad Black pardon: Full statement from former media mogul
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/conrad-black-pardon-full-statement-from-former-media-mogul-1.4424438
I wish I could write half as well as either of these guys.
See my #11 in particular.
I felt this pardon was coming. Black railroaded by our lovely DOJ. Good friend of Mark Steyn.
GREAT!!
Hanson thinks Conrad Black writes like a modern Cicero? Praise from a historian does not get much higher than that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.