Trump Commutes Former Advisor’s Prison Sentence

President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant and former advisor Roger Stone.

The step came just days before Stone was to begin completing a 40-month prison sentence for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation.

Stone was found guilty on charges linked to a justice department probe that alleged Russia tried to boost the Trump 2016 campaign.

The action that Trump had foretold in recent days reflects the President's intense anger about the prosecution of Robert Mueller's special counsel, which is part of the continuing attempt by the President which his team to rewrite the narrative of an inquiry that has shaded the White House from the outset.

Democrats, already alarmed by the Justice Department 's earlier dismissal of Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, denounced the president as further undermining the rule of law.

Stone, 67, has been scheduled to report to prison on Tuesday after the Federal Court of Appeal rejected his bid to postpone the date of his surrender.

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 in the same way a pardon would, 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 reiterates his willingness to flout the norms and standards that have governed presidential conduct for decades. While Trump looks at a coronavirus pandemic that exacerbated his odds of re-election, he became more determined than ever to push the boundaries of his control.

Democrats denounce 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 public reprimand from his own attorney general, William Barr, who said the president's remarks were "making it impossible" for him to do his job. Barr was so incensed that he told everyone he was contemplating resigning.

“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 to pose the gravest of threats to the rule of law.”

Stone, a larger-than-life political figure who embraced his reputation as a dirty trickster, was the sixth Trump aide or adviser to have been convicted of charges brought during the Mueller investigation.

A long-time Trump associate and informal counselor, Stone claimed during the referendum that he was in touch with WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange via a respected source and pointed at WikiLeaks' in-depth awareness about his intentions to leak more than 19,000 leaked documents from the Democratic National Committee servers.

Source: AP