Roger Stone Prosecutors Quit en Masse
Roger Stone Prosecutors Quit en Masse as Trump Demands Leniency
Justice Department throws out sentencing request after angry presidential tweet.
The team of four career federal prosecutors who won felony convictions against Donald Trump’s associate Roger Stone all withdrew from the case on Tuesday, as the Department of Justice revised its own sentencing recommendation to ask for more lenient treatment of Stone—hours after the president tweeted that the original sentencing request, for seven to nine years in prison, was “horrible and very unfair.” The news appeared to mark the direct political use of the Justice Department, under Attorney General William Barr, to shield a Trump ally who was convicted of lying on the president’s behalf.
Stone was convicted in October of seven felony counts including lying to Congress, obstruction of Congress, and witness tampering. Prosecutors made the case that he committed his crimes to protect Trump from political embarrassment. There were indications during the trial that Stone had conveyed to Trump that he had inside information about the WikiLeaks publication of emails from Democratic officials that were hacked by Russia and eventually used as part of Trump’s campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton.
After months of speculation that Trump might pardon Stone—whose career as a self-styled dirty tricks expert for Republicans goes back to the Richard Nixon era—the possible sentencing intervention would be an aggressive use of executive power, from a president newly acquitted by the Senate on impeachment counts of abuse of office and obstruction of Congress.
On Monday, prosecutors who had worked with Mueller had advocated for a sentence of seven to nine years in prison, claiming that Stone’s crimes demanded sentence enhancements because he threatened a witness with physical violence and impeded the administration of justice. (The witness in question said that he did not take the threat of violence seriously.) Overnight, Trump tweeted his displeasure about the recommendation: “This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”
