Prez: Stone the vic...
. . . & Joe & O real criminals
President Trump on Saturday defended his decision to commute the sentence of longtime ally Roger Stone, tweeting that the process leading to his conviction had been illegal.
“Roger Stone was targeted by an illegal Witch Hunt that never should have taken place. It is the other side that are criminals, including [Joe] Biden and [former President Barack] Obama, who spied on my campaign – AND GOT CAUGHT!” Trump said.
After months of hinting, Trump made the commutation official Friday evening.
“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency,” he said. “He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case.”
The commutation came days before Stone (left), who has been close to Trump for decades, was set to begin a 40-month sentence after being found guilty of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering.
Unlike other insiders targeted by special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, Stone consistently maintained his innocence, refusing to cooperate with investigators.
Mueller defended his investigation in a Washington Post op-ed Saturday, saying Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so . . .
“We made every decision in Stone’s case . . . based solely on the facts and the law.”
PANDEMIC lockdown can feel like a prison, but it has meant freedom for some high-profile criminals. With the coronavirus crisis sweeping the nation’s prison system — at a rate 5½ times higher than that of the rest of the US population, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University — these jailbirds have gone from life behind bars to house arrest. Still, they are discovering their new normal is anything but.
Michael Cohen learned his lesson this week, when he was sent back to prison less than two months after his lucky release.
The former lawyer to Donald Trump was released to home confinement on May 21 from Otisville federal prison upstate, where he was serving three years after pleading guilty to tax evasion, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations in 2018.
Upon Cohen’s release, his lawyer, Jeffrey K. Levine, said of his home lockup: “It’s still his prison until his sentence is over.”
But after The Post published photos of Cohen dining out last week at Le Bilboquet, the 53-yearold was taken back into custody.
A friend said home re-entry wasn’t easy for Cohen. “It was disorienting going from solitary confinement [because of COVID-19 restrictions] to [his old life],” the friend told The Post. “This stuff is traumatic. You have this elation that you’re home, but you have to deal with the aftermath of your jail sentence.”
Pastor Darrell Scott, a onetime close friend of Cohen, was less sympathetic. “It was dumb. I know thugs in the hood who know to keep their heads down,” Scott told The Post. “He’s his own worst enemy sometimes. You won’t see Paul Manafort at a restaurant.”
Here’s how Manafort and others are handling house arrest.