Four prosecutors quit Stone case.
Four prosecutors withdrew Tuesday from the case of Roger Stone, the longtime friend of President Donald Trump, after senior Justice Department officials intervened to recommend a more lenient sentence for Stone, who was convicted of impeding investigators in a bid to protect the president.
The highly unusual move prompted one of the government’s key prosecutors to resign altogether. It came after federal prosecutors in Washington asked a judge late Monday to sentence Stone to seven to nine years in prison for trying to sabotage a congressional investigation that threatened Trump and the president criticized their recommendation on Twitter as “horrible and very unfair.”
As he did after a jury speedily convicted Stone on seven felony charges in November, Trump attacked federal law enforcement officials, saying “the real crimes were on the other side.”
“Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” Trump added.
Late Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors submitted a new filing that made no specific sentencing recommendation, saying only that the earlier guidance was excessive and “does not accurately reflect the Department of Justice’s position on what would be a reasonable sentence.” The government still believes “incarceration is warranted” for Stone, they wrote.
“Ultimately, the government defers to the court as to what specific sentence is appropriate under the facts and circumstances of this case,” the filing said, which was signed by John Crabb Jr., a federal prosecutor who joined the case earlier in the day. None of the four prosecutors on Monday’s memo signed it.
The development was a tumultuous turn in one of the most high-profile cases brought by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, whose investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election cast a lengthy shadow over Trump’s presidency. Disagreements between United States attorneys and their Justice Department superiors rarely burst into public view, especially in criminal cases that have commanded the public spotlight for months.
Hours after the Justice Department said that it would lower Stone’s guidelines, a prosecutor on the case, Jonathan Kravis, told the court he had resigned “and therefore no longer represents the government in this matter.”
And two members of Mueller’s team who helped lead the prosecution of Stone, Aaron Zelinsky and Adam C. Jed, withdrew from the case. Zelinsky also resigned from a special assignment with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, though he will continue to work for the Justice Department in Baltimore. A fourth prosecutor, Michael J. Marando, also withdrew.
Department officials defended its intervention, saying they were taken aback by the request for such a stiff sentence, according to a law enforcement official who offered the department’s view of what happened on condition of anonymity because the Stone case was ongoing.
The prosecutors had suggested a lighter prison term in discussions with Justice Department officials, the official said. The department decided to override the prosecutors’ decision soon after the sentencing memorandum was filed Monday evening, said Kerri Kupec, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department.
She said that department officials did not discuss the case with anyone from the White House, including the president, and were not reacting to any directive from Trump or to his criticism on Twitter.
Stone, 67, was convicted in November of obstructing an investigation by the House Intelligence Committee into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, lying to investigators under oath and trying to block the testimony of a witness who would have exposed his lies.