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Judge seeks more details on Trump’s clemency for Stone
WASHINGTON — A federal judge Monday demanded more information about President Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of longtime ally Roger Stone.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the parties to provide her by Tuesday with a copy of the executive order that commuted Stone’s sentence. She also asked for clarity about the scope of the clemency, including whether it covers just his prison sentence or also the two-year period of supervised release that was part of his sentence.
Hours after the judge’s directive, the Justice Department submitted to the court a two-page order making clear that the clemency extended to both Stone’s prison sentence and his supervised release.
In the order, also posted on the website of the Justice Department’s pardon attorney office, Trump wrote that justice would not be served were Stone “to remain confined to his home or serve the said sentence, and the safety of the community will not be compromised if he is released from home confinement and clemency is granted.”
Trump commuted Stone’s 40-month prison sentence Friday, just days before he was to report to prison. Stone was convicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation with making false statements, tampering with a witness and obstructing lawmakers who were examining Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The president told reporters Monday that he was getting “rave reviews” for his action on Stone and restated his position that the Russia investigation “should have never taken place.”
Democrats lambasted Trump’s decision as having undermined the rule of law, and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the only Republican to vote to convict the president during his impeachment trial, called the clemency decision “unprecedented, historic corruption.”
Mueller defended the Stone prosecution in a Washington Post opinion piece in which he said Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
In a separate case, a federal judge has resisted the Justice Department’s request to dismiss the criminal case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, even though Flynn pleaded guilty during Mueller’s investigation to lying to the FBI.
Meanwhile, Random House announced Monday that one of Mueller’s top prosecutors has a book coming out this fall about the two-year investigation into the alleged ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The publisher said Andrew Weissmann’s “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation” will be published Sept. 29. Weissmann, often the target of criticism from Trump supporters, is calling the book a meticulous account of the Mueller team’s probe and its ongoing battles with the Trump administration.
“I felt it was necessary to record this episode in our history, as seen and experienced by an insider,” he said in a statement. “This is the story of our investigation into how our democracy was attacked by Russia and how those who condoned and ignored that assault undermined our ability to uncover the truth. My obligation as a prosecutor was to follow the facts where they led, using all available tools and undeterred by the onslaught of the president’s unique powers to undermine our work.
“I am deeply proud of the work we did and of the unprecedented number of people we indicted and convicted — and in record speed. But the hard truth is that we made mistakes. We could have done more.”
Weissmann, who worked as an FBI general counsel under Mueller, gained prominence as a prosecutor investigating organized crime in New York City and for his leadership of a task force looking into the Enron scandal.
Under Mueller, Weissmann led the case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in 2018.