Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Stone gets hoped-for pardon from Trump
Roger Stone, the notorious dirty trickster and one-time confidant of President Donald Trump, said in April that while he placed his “full faith in Jesus” so he wouldn’t have to serve a 40-month prison sentence, he was also praying for a pardon from Trump.
Late Wednesday, his prayers were answered.
President Donald Trump issued pardons and sentence commutations for 29 people, including Stone, Boca Raton developer James Batmasian, and former Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty.
The actions, in Trump’s final weeks at the White House, bring to nearly 50 the number of people whom the president in the last two days has granted clemency. Pardons are common in the final stretch of a president’s tenure, but Trump has proven himself determined to use his clemency power not only to reward his allies but to support the causes of convicts championed by his friends.
The pardons of former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Stone, who months earlier had his sentence commuted by Trump, underscore the president’s desire to chip away at the results of special counsel Robert Mueller’s
investigation and to come to the aid of associates he feels were wrongly pursued. He has now pardoned four people convicted in that investigation, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Manafort, who led Trump’s campaign during a pivotal 2016 period before being ousted over his ties to Ukraine, had been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for financial crimes related to his work in Ukraine. He was among the first people charged as part of Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He was released to home confinement last May because of coronavirus concerns in the federal prison system.
Though the charges against Manafort did not concern the central thrust of Mueller’s mandate — whether the Trump campaign and Russia colluded to tip the election — he was nonetheless a pivotal figure in the investigation. His close relationship to a man U.S. officials have linked to Russian intelligence, and with whom he shared internal campaign polling data, attracted particular scrutiny during the investigation, though Mueller never charged any Trump associate with conspiring with Russia.
Manafort, in a tweet, thanked Trump and lavished praise on the outgoing president, declaring that history would show he had accomplished more than any of his predecessors.
Trump’s legally troubled allies were not the only recipients of clemency Wednesday night. The long list included people whose pleas for forgiveness have been promoted by people supporting the president throughout his term in office, among them former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
From the White House statement on the pardons:
President Trump granted Mary McCarty a full pardon. Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Christopher Ruddy are among those supportive of Ms. McCarty. Ms. McCarty was a longtime public servant in Palm Beach, Florida, serving as one of its County Commissioners. In 2009, she pled guilty to one count of honest services fraud. The Supreme Court has since interpreted that statute more narrowly, meaning that Ms. McCarty’s conduct might not be criminally prosecuted today.
President Trump granted a full pardon to James Batmasian. Mr. Batmasian’s pardon is supported by Representative Brian Mast, Alice Johnson, and former Masters Champion Bernhard Langer, among many others from the South Florida community that Mr. Batmasian has done so much to serve through his extensive charitable works. Mr. Batmasian runs an extensive property management business in South Florida. Over a three-year period from 2001 to 2003, Mr. Batmasian made overtime payments without withholding for income taxes or FICA contributions. While illegal, Mr. Batmasian recorded all of these payments and made no attempt to hide them when confronted by IRS investigators. In 2008,
Mr. Batmasian pled guilty to willful failure to collect and remit payroll taxes. Mr. Batmasian accepted full responsibility for his actions, fully repaid the IRS the money he owed, and served his 8-month sentence.
Stone was convicted last year of seven counts of an indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the U.S. House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 election.
The case, originally brought by Muller, the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election, was one of the most unusual political spectacles of 2019.
Stone was arrested in a pre-dawn raid at his Fort Lauderdale home on Jan. 25, 2019, and emerged that day from the downtown federal courthouse with his arms and hands outstretched in a Richard Nixon-style “V” for victory salute.
Once prolific on social media, he was subjected to a gag order during the trial. At one point he posted a picture of the federal judge presiding over his case on Instagram with an image that to many looked like the crosshairs of a gun next to her head.
He was convicted of all seven counts in November. After prosecutors recommended a tough sentence, Trump said it was unfair. Then Attorney General William Barr intervened, and the Justice Department recommended a more lenient sentence — prompting the original prosecutors to quit the case.
Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison in February, but Trump commuted the sentence shortly before it was to start.