Trump commutes prison sentence of longtime friend Roger Stone
WASHINGTON
(AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of his
longtime political confidant Roger Stone, intervening in extraordinary
fashion in a criminal case that was central to the Russia investigation
and that concerned the president’s own conduct.
The move came just
days before Stone was to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence for
lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House
investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to win
the 2016 election.
The action, which Trump had foreshadowed in
recent days, underscores the president’s lingering rage over special
counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and is part of a continuing
effort by the president and his administration to rewrite the narrative
of a probe that has shadowed the White House from the outset. Democrats,
already alarmed by the Justice Department’s earlier dismissal of the
case against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn,
denounced the president as further undermining the rule of law.
Stone,
67, had been set to report to prison on Tuesday after a federal appeals
court rejected his bid to postpone his surrender date. But he told The
Associated Press that Trump called him Friday evening to tell him he was
off the hook.
“The president told me that he had decided, in an
act of clemency, to issue a full commutation of my sentence, and he
urged me to vigorously pursue my appeal and my vindication,” Stone said
by phone from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was celebrating with
friends. He said he had to change rooms because there were “too many
people opening bottles of Champagne here.”
Although a commutation does not nullify Stone’s felony convictions, it protects him from serving prison time as a result.
The
move marks another extraordinary intervention by Trump in the nation’s
justice system and underscores anew his willingness to flout the norms
and standards that have governed presidential conduct for decades. As
Trump stares down a coronavirus pandemic that has worsened his chances
for reelection, he has been more willing than ever to test the limits of
his power.
Democrats denounced Trump’s action. House Intelligence
Committee Chair Adam Schiff called it “offensive to the rule of law and
principles of justice. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez
asked, “Is there any power Trump won’t abuse?”
White House press
secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in a statement, called Stone a “victim of
the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media,” and
declared, “Roger Stone is now a free man!”
Stone had been open
about his desire for a pardon or commutation, appealing for the
president’s help with a monthslong television and social media campaign
and seeking to postpone his surrender date by months after getting a
brief extension from the judge, in part by citing the coronavirus.
Trump,
who had made clear in recent days that he was inching closer to acting,
had repeatedly publicly inserted himself into Stone’s case, including
just before Stone’s sentencing.
That earned a public rebuke from
his own attorney general, William Barr, who said the president’s
comments were “making it impossible” for him to do his job. Barr was so
incensed that he told people he was considering resigning over the
matter.
“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,” Schiff said. “Donald Trump, Bill Barr, and all
those who enable them pose the gravest of threats to the rule of law.”
Stone,
a larger-than-life political character who embraced his reputation as a
dirty trickster, was the sixth Trump aide or adviser to have been
convicted of charges brought during Mueller’s investigation.
A
longtime Trump friend and informal adviser, Stone boasted during the
campaign that he was in contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
through a trusted intermediary and hinted at inside knowledge of
WikiLeaks’ plans to release more than 19,000 emails hacked from the
servers of the Democratic National Committee.
But Stone denied any
wrongdoing and consistently criticized the case against him as
politically motivated. He did not take the stand during his trial, did
not speak at his sentencing. His lawyers did not call any witnesses in
his defense.
Prosecutors had originally recommended Stone serve
seven to nine years in prison. But in a highly unusual move, Barr
reversed that decision after a Trump tweet and recommended a more
lenient punishment, prompting a mini-revolt inside the Justice
Department, with the entire prosecution team resigning from the case.
Department
officials have vehemently denied Barr was responding to Trump’s
criticism and have insisted there was no contact with the White House
over the decision. Barr has also pointed out that the judge, in imposing
a 40-month sentence, had agreed with him that the original sentencing
recommendation was excessive.
Barr has said the prosecution was
justified, and the Justice Department did not support Stone’s more
recent effort to put off his surrender date. Though the Justice
Department raised concerns about the handling of Flynn’s case, including
what it said were irregularities about his FBI interview, prosecutors
did not point to any similar issues or problems with the Stone
prosecution.
Even so, the commutation will almost certainly
contribute to a portrait of a president determined to erase the impact
of the Russia investigation and to intervene on behalf of allies.
The
commutation was the latest example of Trump using his unlimited
clemency power to pardon powerful men he believes have been mistreated
by the justice system.
Trump went on a clemency spree in February,
commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich, a Democrat, and pardoning former New York City police
commissioner Bernie Kerik, financier Michael Milken and several others.
Trump
has also offered clemency to other political allies, including Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was awaiting sentencing at the time,
conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who had been convicted on
campaign finance violations, and Conrad Black, a newspaper publisher
convicted of fraud who had written a flattering book about the
president.
Trump, however, has spent much more time trumpeting his
decision to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who was
serving life in prison for nonviolent drug offenses and who came to
Trump’s attention after reality star Kim Kardashian West took up her
cause. Her story was featured in a Trump campaign Super Bowl ad.
Stone told the AP he expressed his gratitude to Trump in the phone call.
“You
know, he has a great sense of fairness,” Stone said. “We’ve been
friends for many, many years, and he understands that I was targeted
strictly for political reasons.”