(Washington) Roger Stone, longtime friend of Donald Trump who saw his sentence commuted by the American president, remains "a reprimand of justice condemned and rightly, "said ex-special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who launched the proceedings against him, on Saturday.
Roger Stone, 67 years, was to begin Tuesday to serve the sentence of forty months in prison, notably for bribery and witness and for lying to Congress in the context of the "Russian investigation" into the Donald Trump campaign in 2016. The president, of whom he is a former adviser, announced Friday that he was commuting this sentence.
PHOTO ALEX BRANDON, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller
In a column published in the Washington Post , Robert Mueller defended his investigation. "Stone was prosecuted and found guilty because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convict justifiably sentenced, "wrote the former prosecutor.
The influential Republican Senator Mitt Romney joined his voice on Saturday with those of the Democrats to denounce as an act of "corruption" serious the decision of Donald Trump .
M. Romney, a regular critic of Donald Trump, is the first influential member of the presidential party to speak out against this decision.
"Unprecedented historic corruption: an American president commutes the prison sentence of a person convicted by a jury for lying in order to protect the same president, "tweeted Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential candidate for 2012.
The Utah senator is the only member of the "Grand Old Party" to have voted in February in favor of the removal of Donald Trump in the part of the Ukrainian affair.
Trump's political advisor intermittently for more than 16 years, known for his sulphurous style and his Richard Nixon tattoo on the back, Roger Stone had appealed against his conviction, but still had to be imprisoned next Tuesday.
But Donald Trump had never hidden his desire to save the prison from his former adviser. "Roger Stone was the target of a witch hunt that should never have taken place," he said in a tweet on Saturday morning.
"Victim of the Russian hoax perpetrated by the left and its allies in the media", Roger Stone is now "a free man", had said Friday the White House.
He said he was "incredibly honored" for this presidential "leniency".
"Two justices"
Since then, the Democrats have been crying out for scandal.
"Donald Trump's decision to commute the sentence of his campaign adviser Roger Stone [...] is an astonishing act of corruption," said Friday the head of the Democrats in the American Congress, Nancy Pelosi.
"Congress will take steps to prevent this kind of shameless wrongdoing," she said in a statement. "We need to legislate to ensure that no president can pardon or commute the sentence of an individual involved in a cover-up campaign to protect that same president from criminal prosecution. "
The elected democrat Adam Schiff, who led the team of prosecutors during the trial for the impeachment of the president, for his part estimated: "With Trump , there are now two justice systems in the United States: one for Trump's evil friends, and one for everyone else. "
Roger Stone is one of six members of the entourage, more or less close, of the New York billionaire to have been charged or sentenced in the wake from the Russian investigation.
Describing himself as "a regular at pummeling", he was found guilty of lying to Congress about his contacts with the WikiLeaks organization regarding hacked Democratic emails during the campaign of 2012.
Prosecutors demonstrated that he lied and intimidated witnesses to protect Donald Trump from embarrassment.
The president had intervened during the legal proceedings by criticizing, in tweets, the initial recommendations of the prosecutors responsible for investigating this case. The latter, on whom Donald Trump had been accused of exerting pressure by flouting the separation of powers, had recused themselves, and the Justice of Justice recommendation for sentence had been lowered.
