Trump commutes ally Stone’s sentence
President’s ex-adviser no longer set to serve 40 months in prison
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone Jr. on seven felony crimes Friday, using the power of his office to help a former campaign adviser days before Stone was to report to a federal prison to serve a 40-month term.
In a lengthy statement released late Friday evening, the White House denounced the prosecution against Stone on what it called “process based charges” stemming from “the Russia Hoax” investigation. “Roger Stone has already suffered greatly,” the statement said. “He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!”
Punctuated by the same language and grievances characteristic of the president’s Twitter feed, the official statement assailed “overzealous prosecutors” working for special counsel Robert Mueller as well as the “witch hunts” aimed at the president and his associates. It attacked the “activist juror” who led the panel that convicted Stone and went on to complain about the show of force used by federal law en
forcement agents when he was arrested.
“These charges were the product of recklessness borne of frustration and malice,” the statement said. “This is why the outof-control Mueller prosecutors, desperate for splashy headlines to compensate for a failed investigation, set their sights on Mr. Stone.”
The statement did not argue that Stone was innocent, only that he should not have been pursued. “The simple fact is that if the special counsel had not been pursuing an absolutely baseless investigation, Mr. Stone would not be facing time in prison,” it said.
Stone, 67, a longtime Republican operative, was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign and has been openly lobbying for clemency, maintaining that he could die in prison and emphasizing that he had stayed loyal to the president rather than help investigators.
“He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him,” Stone told journalist Howard Fineman on Friday shortly before the announcement. “It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”
After the commutation was announced, Grant Smith, a lawyer for Stone, said: “Mr. Stone is incredibly honored that President Trump used his awesome and unique power under the Constitution of the United States for this act of mercy. Mr. and Mrs. Stone appreciate all the consideration the president gave to this matter.”
‘Two systems of justice’
Democrats quickly condemned the president’s decision, characterizing it as an abuse of the rule of law. “With this commutation, Trump makes clear that there are two systems of justice in America: one for his criminal friends, and one for everyone else,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a leader of the drive to impeach Trump last year for pressuring Ukraine to incriminate his domestic rivals.
Stone made no secret of his desire for clemency from the president. While it was not immediately clear when the two last spoke, Stone has given several interviews in which he said he was “praying” for a reprieve from Trump. He cited health concerns, including asthma, and a fear of the coronavirus.
“I think I’ll be the last person to know” if there is an action from the president, Stone told Fox News earlier this week. “He hates leaks, and he hates to be told what to do. I have instructed my lawyers not to contact the lawyers at the White House.”
Stone added: “The president, who I’ve known for 40 years, has an incredible sense of fairness. He is aware that the people trying to destroy Michael Flynn, now trying to destroy me, are the people trying to destroy him.”
The debate over clemency for Stone has raged within the White House for months. Among those who advocated on behalf of it from outside the building were Tucker Carlson, the influential Fox News anchor, and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., according to people familiar with the discussions.
Within the White House itself, Stone had few allies. Many Trump aides who knew him from the campaign did not like him, were envious of his long relationship with Trump or thought clemency would be bad politics.
Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, expressed concern about possible political damage, according to two people familiar with the discussions, although he has left people with different impressions about where he stands. The same is true of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who has been involved in most of the clemency discussions throughout the last three years.
Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, was concerned about intervening on Stone’s behalf, according to the people close to the discussions. One of the few within the White House who backed clemency was Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser and an old friend of Stone. Kudlow spends more time with Trump than many other advisers.
Upheaval in sentencing
Stone was convicted last year of obstructing a congressional inquiry into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Prosecutors convinced jurors that he lied under oath, withheld a trove of documents and threatened an associate with harm if he cooperated with congressional investigators. Stone maintained his innocence and claimed prosecutors wanted him to offer information about Trump that he said did not exist.
Stone was sentenced against a backdrop of upheaval at the Justice Department not seen for decades. First, four career prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison, citing advisory sentencing guidelines that generally govern the department’s sentencing requests.
After Trump attacked the prosecutors’ recommendation on Twitter, Attorney General William Barr overruled it. Trump then publicly applauded him for doing so, even though the attorney general said he made the decision on his own and criticized the president on national television for undercutting his credibility.
The prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest, and one quit the department entirely. At Stone’s sentencing hearing in February, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson called the situation “unprecedented.” Without naming him, she suggested that the president had tried to influence the course of justice by publicly attacking her, the jurors and the Justice Department lawyers.
“The dismay and disgust at any attempt to interfere with the efforts of prosecutors and members of the judiciary to fulfill their duty should transcend party,” she said.
In an interview with ABC News this week, Barr defended both the original prosecution of Stone as well as his own intervention to reduce the punishment, saying the case itself was “righteous” but the sentencing recommendation “excessive.”
Stone, who lives in Florida, had been ordered earlier to report to the Bureau of Prisons by June 30 to begin serving his sentence. He sought a two-month delay, citing the coronavirus pandemic sweeping through federal prisons, but Jackson granted him only a two-week reprieve, noting that the prison he was to report to was “unaffected” by the outbreak.