Prosecutor: Politics played role in Stone case
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department gave Roger Stone “unprecedentedly favorable treatment” because he is an ally of President Donald Trump, a former prosecutor on the case is expected to tell Congress Wednesday.
Aaron Zelinsky, an attorney on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and one of the career Justice Department lawyers who prosecuted Stone, said the agency’s leadership pressured them to recommend a lenient sentence for political reasons – a move that a supervisor acknowledged was “unethical and wrong.”
And yet, Zelinsky said, Justice Department leadership from the highest levels pressured then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Timothy Shea to “cut Stone a break.” He and the other prosecutors repeatedly raised concerns about “such political favoritism,” but their objections “were not heeded,” Zelinsky said.
The political meddling was unprecedented, according to Zelensky, and prompted him to resign from the case.
“In the many cases I have been privileged to work on in my career, I have never seen political influence play any role in prosecutorial decision making. With one exception: United States v. Roger Stone,” Zelinsky said in an opening statement released Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee.
Zelinsky is set to testify Wednesday before the committee, which is investigating allegations of political interference within the Justice Department. Zelinsky’s attorney, Robert Litt, said the prosecutor “will truthfully describe what happened with the Stone sentencing.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.