Name: Trump Has Commuted The Prison Sentence Of His “Loyal” Ally Roger Stone
Brand: buzzfeednews.com
SKU: buzzfeednews-com-265
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Trump Has Commuted The Prison Sentence Of His “Loyal” Ally Roger Stone

preview

AdvertisementPresident Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence for his longtime ally Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign adviser who had been sentenced to prison for lying to Congress during the Russia investigation, obstructing investigators, and tampering with witnesses.Rather than spending 40 months in a federal prison, Stone “is now a free man,” according to a White House statement announcing the commutation. Stone was due to surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on July 14.For months, Trump had been publicly noncommittal about whether he’d grant Stone clemency, but made clear that he still supported the longtime Republican political operative. His tweets grew less subtle over time — on June 27, he retweeted a that read, “IT’S TIME TO #PardonRogerStone."Trump instead issued a commutation for Stone, thereby lightening the penalty, but leaving his underlying conviction intact.“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement Friday evening.Advertisement“Mr. Stone, like every American, deserves a fair trial and every opportunity to vindicate himself before the courts. The President does not wish to interfere with his efforts to do so,” McEnany added. “At this time, however, and particularly in light of the egregious facts and circumstances surrounding his unfair prosecution, arrest, and trial, the President has determined to commute his sentence.”Stone attempt at getting a new trial in April after US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected his argument that a juror was biased because she’d criticized Trump on social media.The judge had also refused Stone’s request to delay the date when he reported to prison until the fall. Stone’s lawyers had argued that he was at a “heightened risk of serious medical consequences” if he contracted COVID-19, and the Justice Department did not oppose the request. Jackson did agree to push back his surrender date by two weeks, but ordered him into home confinement — effectively imposing a quarantine period that the judge said would shield Stone from contracting the disease before he went to prison.Although the Justice Department supported Stone’s original request to delay his surrender date to September, the government backed Jackson when Stone appealed to the DC Circuit. DOJ lawyers wrote in a July 9 filing that Jackson’s decision to only extend the date by two weeks was a “reasonable exercise” of her discretion.Earlier Friday, about an hour before Trump announced he was commuting his sentence, the DC Circuit denied Stone's request to delay his prison sentence as well. McEnany cited the pandemic in her statement announcing Trump's decision to commute Stone's sentence, arguing that "Mr. Stone would be put at serious medical risk in prison."AdvertisementJackson’s ruling in April meant that Stone’s criminal case was officially over in the district court, and she lifted a gag order that had barred him from not only speaking publicly about his case, but also posting anything on social media.In the weeks that followed the end of the gag order, Stone routinely used Instagram as a platform to make his case for a pardon, along with appearances on Fox News and radio interviews. But on Wednesday, Facebook that it had taken down Stone's Instagram account, along with accounts linked to , a far-right, men-only extremist group, some of whom had and worked on his social media.On April 30, Stone appealed his conviction and Jackson’s order denying him a new trial. That appeal was still pending when Trump announced that he’d granted Stone clemency.Before Stone was sentenced in February, the case exploded into a national controversy over political overreach by the administration to protect a friend Trump once called a “.”Four federal prosecutors originally assigned to Stone’s case had filed papers with the court recommending a sentence of seven to nine years, but Trump balked, that would be a “very unfair situation” and “miscarriage of justice!” Political appointees at the Justice Department quickly intervened to request a lighter punishment in February, prompting .One of the prosecutors, Special Assistant US Attorney Aaron Zelinsky, had when the trial began in November, “Evidence will show Roger Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee because the truth looked bad. The truth looked bad for the Trump campaign and the truth looked bad for Donald Trump.”AdvertisementZelinsky, one of the prosecutors who withdrew from the case, before the House Judiciary Committee on June 24 that he understood that senior DOJ officials interfered because Trump wanted to “cut Stone a break.” Zelinsky told lawmakers that a supervisor told him that the interim US attorney in Washington, DC, at the time, Timothy Shea, was “afraid of the president.”Stone is among several other members of the president’s inner orbit who’ve been convicted or pleaded guilty to federal crimes. The roster includes Trump campaign deputy chair Rick Gates; Trump administration former national security adviser Michael Flynn; Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen; former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos; and Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort. But Stone is the first prosecuted by Mueller’s team to have his sentence commuted by the president.Trump has let allies off the hook before, including , the former Arizona sheriff convicted of defying a court order to stop profiling people as suspected undocumented immigrants. Trump pardoned Arpaio in August 2017, before Arpaio had been sentenced.In November, a on five counts of lying to Congress and one count each of witness tampering and obstruction of Congress.He was arrested in January 2019 after former special counsel Robert Mueller’s office indicted him on charges of lying to the House Intelligence Committee about his contacts with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. WikiLeaks had published emails, obtained by Russians, from the hacked servers of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.AdvertisementStone and Trump made phone calls in 2016, prosecutors showed, including the same day the DNC announced it had been hacked. Stone Trump via speakerphone that the leaks were coming, but that he "did not know what the content of the materials was," to which Trump responded, "oh good, alright," according to unredacted transcript's of Mueller's report.Although Stone denied being in contact with Assange, who was sequestered in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, prosecutors presented emails and text messages alleging he was repeatedly in touch with WikiLeaks and people involved in the Trump campaign about publishing the leaks. Court records indicate Stone told an unidentified person involved in Trump’s campaign, "Spoke to my friend in London last night. The payload is still coming.”Prosecutors also say Stone “subsequently told the [Trump] supporter that more material would be released and that it would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign.”In 2016, Stone had also with Guccifer 2.0, who had taken credit for the hack of the DNC's computers (Mueller’s office later ). Stone called his communications “innocuous.”House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff slammed Trump’s decision in a statement Friday. “President Trump has engaged in countless acts that are both self-serving and destructive to democracy while in office, but commuting the sentence of Roger Stone, a crony who lied and obstructed our investigation to protect Trump himself, is among the most offensive to the rule of law and principles of justice,” he said.Stone also antagonized the court during his trial by posting an image on Instagram that portrayed Jackson with what . Jackson responded by barring him from speaking publicly about his case or Mueller’s investigation for the rest of the trial.AdvertisementBefore Stone was sentenced, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General, an autonomous agency watchdog, to investigate who at DOJ and the White House had called for the lighter sentence. "This situation has all the indicia of improper political interference."Contact Zoe Tillman at .Dominic Holden is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.Contact Dominic Holden at .Got a confidential tip?AdvertisementCommentsUnable to load comments.Try reloading this page or{{^ results }}There are no comments yet.{{/ results }}{{# results }}{{#blurb}}{{ blurb }}{{/blurb}}{{#picture_url}}{{/picture_url}}{{/ results }}{{# count }}{{/ count }}Show moreClose this modalWe, and our partners, use technologies to process personal information, including IP addresses, pseudonymous identifiers associated with cookies, and in some cases mobile ad IDs. This information is processed to personalize content based on your interests, run and optimize marketing campaigns, measure the performance of ads and content, and derive insights about the audiences who engage with ads and content. This data is an integral part of how we operate our site, make revenue to support our staff, and generate relevant content for our audience. You can learn more about our data collection and use practices in our Privacy Policy.If you wish to request that your personal information is not shared with third parties, please click on the below opt out button. Please note that after your opt out request is processed, we may still collect your information in order to operate our site.Opt OutContinue without Opting OutWe and our partners use technology such as cookies on our site to personalize content and ads, provide social media features, and analyze our traffic. Click below to consent to the use of this technology across the web. You can change your mind and change your consent choices at anytime by returning to this site.I do not acceptI acceptShow purposesThe storage of information, or access to information that is already stored, on your device such as advertising identifiers, device identifiers, cookies, and similar technologies.The collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise advertising and/or content for you in other contexts, such as on other websites or apps, over time. Typically, the content of the site or app is used to make inferences about your interests, which inform future selection of advertising and/or content.The collection of information, and combination with previously collected information, to select and deliver advertisements for you, and to measure the delivery and effectiveness of such advertisements. This includes using previously collected information about your interests to select ads, processing data about what advertisements were shown, how often they were shown, when and where they were shown, and whether you took any action related to the advertisement, including for example clicking an ad or making a purchase. This does not include personalisation, which is the collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise advertising and/or content for you in other contexts, such as websites or apps, over time.The collection of information, and combination with previously collected information, to select and deliver content for you, and to measure the delivery and effectiveness of such content. This includes using previously collected information about your interests to select content, processing data about what content was shown, how often or how long it was shown, when and where it was shown, and whether the you took any action related to the content, including for example clicking on content. This does not include personalisation, which is the collection and processing of information about your use of this service to subsequently personalise content and/or advertising for you in other contexts, such as websites or apps, over time.&lt; Back&lt; BackSee full vendor list

AdvertisementPresident Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence for his longtime ally Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign adviser who had been sentenced to prison for lying to Congress during the Russia investigation, obstructing investigators, and tampering with witnesses.Rather than spending 40 months in a federal prison, Stone “is now a free man,” according to a White House statement announcing the commutation. Stone was due to surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons on July 14.For months, Trump had been publicly noncommittal about whether he’d grant Stone clemency, but made...

public

Senior reporter @BuzzFeedNews covering courts, justice, and the intersection of law and politics. zoe.tillman@buzzfeed.com

Zoe Tillman

Got something that needs 👀? Send us tips here:   http://tips.buzzfeednews.com. Support our reporting: http://bit.ly/2VkE9pK

Trump Has Commuted The Prison Sentence Of His “Loyal” Ally Roger Stone

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS