Trump's Roger Stone power play reveals a presidency unleashed

By bulldozing into Roger Stone's sentencing, Donald Trump sparked a mutiny by four career prosecutors, raised fears about the impartial administration of justice and showed how his impeachment acquittal unchained an already rampant presidency.

The Justice Department's decision to water down a recommendation by its own prosecutors for Stone to serve up to nine years in prison that outraged the President sent shockwaves through Washington. It also appears to reflect Trump's redoubled determination to escalate pressure on core institutions of the US government to pursue his personal and political priorities.

Wednesday morning, he brazenly offered congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr for "taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought," even though multiple courts have upheld former special counsel Robert Mueller's appointment, his authority, and the decisions he made.

The sudden storm over Stone, triggered by an early-hours tweet by the President, is part of an accelerating pattern of unmoderated behavior since Trump was found not guilty of impeachable offenses a week ago by Republican senators -- some of whom expressed the hope that the scar of impeachment would temper his wildest impulses.

Instead, the President appears to have drawn a lesson about impunity from his experience and seems committed to accelerating his bid to subvert constitutional and political norms. This may augur a period of expansive power plays by the President -- as he runs for reelection and that could become even more intense if he wins a second term.

In another sign of his defiance, Trump last week fired officials, including White House Ukraine specialist Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, who were subpoenaed to testify in the impeachment inquiry in a manner that might have been interpreted as witness intimidation in a regular context and is likely to chill future accountability. On Tuesday, he said that he would "certainly" expect the military to look at disciplining Vindman, who testified that he was troubled by the President's call with Ukraine's President in July.