US President Donald Trump commutes sentence of ally Roger Stone

WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - US President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of his long-time friend Roger Stone Jr on seven felony crimes on Friday (July 10), using the power of his office to help a former campaign adviser days before Stone was to report to a federal prison to serve a 40-month term.

In a lengthy statement released late on Friday evening, the White House denounced the prosecution against Stone on what it called "process-based charges" stemming from "the Russia Hoax" investigation.

Stone, one of Trump's oldest confidants, was convicted last November of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

"Roger Stone has already suffered greatly," the statement said.

"He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!"

Punctuated by the same sort of inflammatory language and angry grievances characteristic of the president's Twitter feed, the official statement assailed "overzealous prosecutors" working for special counsel Robert Mueller as well as the "witch hunts" aimed at the president and his associates.

It attacked the "activist juror" who led the panel that convicted Stone and went on to complain about the show of force used by federal law enforcement agents when he was arrested.

"These charges were the product of recklessness borne of frustration and malice," the statement said.

"This is why the out-of-control Mueller prosecutors, desperate for splashy headlines to compensate for a failed investigation, set their sights on Mr Stone."

It added: "The simple fact is that if the special counsel had not been pursuing an absolutely baseless investigation, Mr Stone would not be facing time in prison."

Stone, 67, has been openly lobbying for clemency, maintaining that he could die in prison and emphasising that he had stayed loyal to the president rather than help investigators.

"He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him," Stone told journalist Howard Fineman on Friday shortly before the announcement.

"It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn't."

Within the White House, Stone had few allies.

Many Trump aides who knew him from the campaign did not like him, were envious of his long relationship with Mr Trump or thought clemency would be bad politics.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, expressed concern about possible political damage, according to two people familiar with the discussions, although he has left people with different impressions about where he stands.

The same is true of Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, who has been involved in most of the clemency discussions throughout the last three years.

Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, was concerned about intervening on Stone's behalf, according to the people close to the discussions.

One of the few within the White House who backed clemency was Larry Kudlow, the president's top economic adviser and an old friend of Stone.

Mr Kudlow spends more time with Mr Trump than many other advisers.

Granting clemency to Stone is certain to prompt new complaints that the Trump administration is thwarting the federal justice system to help the president's friends.

The Justice Department moved in May to dismiss its own criminal case against Mr Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

And last month Mr Trump fired Geoffrey S. Berman, the US attorney whose office prosecuted Michael Cohen, the president's former personal lawyer, and has been investigating Rudy Giuliani, another of his lawyers.

Mr Trump has used his power to issue pardons or commutations to a variety of political allies, supporters or people with connections to his own circle but Stone is the first figure directly connected to the president's campaign to benefit from his clemency power.

While Mr Trump has publicly dangled pardons for associates targeted by investigators, that was a line he had been wary of crossing until now amid warnings from advisers concerned about the possible political damage.

Stone was sentenced against a backdrop of upheaval at the Justice Department not seen for decades.

First, four career prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to seven to nine years in prison, citing advisory sentencing guidelines that generally govern the department's sentencing requests.

After Mr Trump attacked the prosecutors' recommendation on Twitter, Attorney-General William Barr overruled it.

Mr Trump then publicly applauded him for doing so, even though the attorney-general said he made the decision on his own and criticised the president on national television for undercutting his credibility.

The prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest, and one quit the department entirely.

At Stone's sentencing hearing in February, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson called the situation "unprecedented".

Without naming him, she suggested that the president had tried to influence the course of justice by publicly attacking her, the jurors and the Justice Department lawyers.

"The dismay and disgust at any attempt to interfere with the efforts of prosecutors and members of the judiciary to fulfil their duty should transcend party," she said.

In an interview with ABC News this week, Mr Barr defended both the original prosecution of Stone as well as his own intervention to reduce the punishment, saying the case itself was "righteous" but the sentencing recommendation "excessive".

Stone, who lives in Florida, had been ordered earlier to report to the Bureau of Prisons by June 30 to begin serving his sentence.

He sought a two-month delay, citing the coronavirus pandemic sweeping through federal prisons, but Ms Jackson granted him only a two-week reprieve, noting that the prison he was to report to was "unaffected" by the outbreak.