Donald Trump commutes prison sentence of Roger Stone

The US President has commuted the 40-month prison sentence handed to his longtime confidant and adviser.

Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to US President Donald Trump, has had his prison sentence commuted by Mr Trump.

US President Donald Trump has commuted the 40-month prison sentence of longtime confidant and adviser Roger Stone.

A White House statement called the sentence unjust and said Stone had been “a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetrated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency.”

BREAKING WH Press Sec: "Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency commuting the unjust sentence of Roger Stone, Jr." pic.twitter.com/UCTMG5spKd

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) July 10, 2020

Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction. He was set to surrender to authorities to begin his prison sentence next week. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a Trump ally, had tweeted within the hour before the White House announcement that a commutation was justified in that Stone is in his 70s and was a first-time offender.

In my view it would be justified if President @realDonaldTrump decided to commute Roger Stone's prison sentence.

Mr. Stone is in his 70s and this was a non-violent, first-time offense.https://t.co/jbbGTucRpq

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 10, 2020

Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who leads the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted that Stone had lied and intimidated witnesses who might have testified against Trump in the probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and that the commutation of his sentence demonstrates that there are now two systems of justice in the U.S., one for Trump associates and one for everyone else.

Journalist and author Howard Fineman reported before the commutation news broke that he’d spoken with Stone earlier Friday and that Stone had said he wanted the commutation rather than a pardon, as the latter implies guilt.

Just had a long talk with #RogerStone. He says he doesn’t want a pardon (which implies guilt) but a commutation, and says he thinks #Trump will give it to him. “He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.”

— howardfineman (@howardfineman) July 10, 2020

Mr. Trump’s action brings to a close one of the final remaining cases stemming from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race and whether anyone in the Trump campaign was involved.

In a statement released Friday evening, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called Mr. Stone’s sentence “unjust,” adding: “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.” Mr. Trump called Mr. Stone Friday evening to let him know he would be commuting the sentence, said a person familiar with the conversation. The decision came soon after a federal appeals court denied an emergency request by Mr. Stone to delay the start of his prison term.

Mr. Trump has issued high-profile pardons and at least one controversial commutation, but his grant of clemency to Mr. Stone marks the first time he has used his authority to help one of his close associates. His former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn were also charged in connection with the Mueller investigation; neither has received a pardon.

Mr. Stone was arrested in January 2019 as part of Mr. Mueller’s investigation. He was convicted in federal court in November of making false statements and trying to impede a congressional investigation into Russian election interference. The jury found that he had misled politicians about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks, which had published Democratic emails stolen by Russia. He also was convicted of tampering with a witness — a friend and New York comedian who had evidence to contradict Mr. Stone.

Mr. Stone was scheduled to report July 14 to a federal prison camp in Georgia to begin serving a 40-month sentence.

US President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One prior to departure from Miami International Airport in Miami overnight.

Lawyers for Mr. Stone had asked the court to allow him to delay reporting until September, citing fears that Mr. Stone, 67 years old, could contract COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. That request was opposed by the Justice Department and rebuffed by the judge who oversaw his case.

The Stone proceeding was unusual from the start. Early on, Mr. Stone posted a video on how to dress for court, and he was banned at one point from using social media after he posted a picture of the judge with a crosshairs near her head. The trial included a dispute over whether prosecutors could play a clip from a mob film and whether Mr. Stone had made threats against a witness’s dog.

Career prosecutors initially recommended that he serve the standard sentence for his crimes — more than seven years behind bars. A day later, the Justice Department asked for less time, an unusual move that prompted the resignation of at least one prosecutor.

Aaron Zelinsky, one of the prosecutors in the case, testified before Congress last month that supervisors in the federal prosecutors office in Washington told him Mr. Stone would receive special treatment “because of his relationship with the president.” Mr. Zelinsky said the U.S. Attorney in Washington was “receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels” of the department to “cut Stone a break.” The day of Mr. Zelinsky’s testimony, a Justice Department spokeswoman defended the agency’s decision regarding Mr. Stone’s sentence as appropriate and not driven by requests for leniency from the president.

High-profile advocates pressed publicly and privately for Mr. Trump to intervene in the case.

“Roger Stone should not disproportionately shoulder the burden of a corrupt investigation,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), an ally of Mr. Trump, said in an interview Friday. “Roger is no saint. He says and does things all the time that I don’t agree with, but I don’t believe in putting people in jail because of their politics.” Mr. Stone has been a Republican operative for decades, beginning in 1972 when he served as a junior staffer on President Nixon’s re-election campaign. He went on to work for Ronald Reagan in his presidential bid. When in New York organising for the Reagan campaign in 1979, he was introduced to Mr. Trump by attorney Roy Cohn.

Mr. Stone registered as a lobbyist on behalf of the Trump Organization in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to public records. Around that time, he began counselling Mr. Trump on his political ambitions, and the two became friends.

Although Mr. Stone was sidelined from mainstream Republican politics following salacious revelations about his personal life in the mid-1990s, he continued to advise Mr. Trump for years, including helping to lead Mr. Trump’s aborted 2000 presidential campaign on the Reform Party ticket. He served on the Trump 2016 campaign when it started but severed ties in the summer of 2015.

Alex Leary contributed to this article.

The Wall Street Journal