The White House announced Friday that President Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency commuting the “unjust sentence” of Roger Stone, just days before the longtime political operative is slated to report to prison to serve more than three years for charges stemming from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Earlier Friday, an appeals court denied Stone’s request to delay reporting for his sentence, saying he must report for prison on Tuesday.
“In sum, Stone is not legally eligible for further postponement of his reporting date under 18 U.S.C. § 3145(c), which is the only basis on which he seeks relief from this court. We therefore deny his motion,” the court wrote in its order.
Stone was set to report to prison on July 14 to serve 40 months. He was sentenced in February to more than three years in prison after being convicted in November 2019 on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress on charges that stemmed from Mueller’s investigation. Stone, however, has appealed his conviction and continues to deny any wrongdoing.
BREAKING: President Trump has just commuted Roger Stone’s sentence.
Congratulations Roger,
And Thank you, President Trump!
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) July 10, 2020
This is tantamount to Stone saying, ‘commute my sentence (to probation) or I will talk.’ If Trump now does so, it will be a corrupt exercise of the pardon/commutation power. Recall, Bannon testified at Stone’s trial that Roger was “the Trump campaign’s access point to Wikileaks.” https://t.co/Os7VxRwO4y
— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) July 10, 2020