(Washington) Donald Trump had never hidden his desire to spare the prison from his friend Roger Stone: the latter, sentenced in February to 40 months behind bars as part of the investigation into Russian interference during the presidential campaign of 2016, saw his sentence commuted by the American president.
Posted on 10 July 2020 at 20 h 20 Updated at 21 h 47
Leo MOUREN
France Media Agency
“Today, President Donald J. Trump has ordered executive leniency to commute the unjust sentence of Roger Stone,” the White House announced Friday in a statement, adding that this longtime friend of the president, a “victim of the Russian hoax perpetuated by the left and its allies in the media”, was now “a free man”.
Roger Stone's prison sentence, which was convicted in November of congressional lies and witness bribery, was due to start next week.
Through his lawyer, who transmitted his statement to the media, he said he was “incredibly honored” for this presidential “leniency”.
An “abuse of power” for Democratic parliamentarians Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney. “No other president has used his leniency for such a clearly personal and self-serving reason,” said the chairmen of the House of Representatives' judicial and supervisory commissions.
As of the conviction of Mr. Stone, Donald Trump had explained that he wanted to pardon his ex-collaborator, aged 67 years, a sulphurous political adviser known for his colorful style and his Richard Nixon tattoo on the back.
Roger Stone, who describes himself as “a regular hitman”, was found guilty of lying to Congress about his contacts with the organization WikiLeaks about hacked democratic emails during the campaign 2016. Prosecutors had demonstrated that he lied and intimidated witnesses to protect Donald Trump from embarrassment.
Judicial pressure
The New York billionaire intervened in particular during the legal proceedings by criticizing, in tweets, the initial recommendations of the prosecutors responsible for investigating this case.
Accused of flouting the principle of the separation of powers and putting pressure on these prosecutors, he explained that his actions were not reprehensible, denouncing a “very unfair situation” and a “miscarriage of justice”.
The prosecutors in charge of the file had recused themselves, and the sentencing recommendation of the Ministry of Justice had gone from a duration between 7 and 9 years to a sentence between 3 and 4 years, finally followed by the federal judge who had sentenced Mr. Stone to 40 months in prison.
Donald Trump had praised his Minister of Justice Bill Barr for his intervention, congratulating him “for having taken over a case which was completely out of control”.
But the latter, embarrassed because he was supposed to guarantee the independence and impartiality of the American federal justice, had denied that these comments had an impact on the decision of his services.
The American president has already been accused of obstructing justice, within the framework of the Russian investigation, in particular by dismissing at the beginning of his mandate the director of the FBI James Comey, who investigated the foreign interferences in the election of 2016.
Roger Stone is among the six members of the entourage, more or less close, of the New York billionaire to have been charged or sentenced in the wake of the Russian investigation.