Trump Attacks DOJ for ‘Disgraceful’ Prison Sentence Request for Roger Stone: ‘Cannot Allow This Miscarriage of Justice!’

Reed RichardsonFeb 11th, 2020, 2:52 am
 

Donald Trump, Roger Stone

President Donald Trump slammed his own Justice Deparment in a late-night Twitter rant, calling it “disgraceful” and a “miscarriage of justice” that federal prosecutors are seeking a seven to nine-year prison sentence for convicted felon Roger Stone.

Stone, a 67-year-old friend and longtime confidante of Trump’s who briefly worked on the 2016 campaign, was found guilty on all counts of witness tampering, obstruction, and lying to Congress after a trial in November. On Monday evening, news broke that the federal prosecutors who secured the guilty verdicts would be seeking prison time for Stone ranging between 87 and 108 months, based on sentencing guidelines.

Trump first lodged his protest to the news just before 1:00am EST Tuesday morning, with a one-word retweet of a conservative pundit blasting the DOJ’s sentencing recommendation as “an unhinged miscarriage of justice.”

After tweeting about his earlier visit to Dover AFB to receive the bodies of two fallen US soldiers killed in Afghanistan, which he simply described as “Very sad!” Trump circled back to Stone’s case nearly an hour later to launch further bromides at the DOJ officials responsible. First, he retweeted two posts highly crucial of the DOJ decision from a reporter from a right-wing news site, then he directly impugned the judgment of the federal prosecutors, calling the sentencing request a “horrible and very unfair situation” and strongly suggesting a commutation might be coming by saying he “cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”

Trump’s outpouring of support for Stone, who has remained a steadfast supporter of Trump, stands in stark contrast to how he responded to his former attorney Michael Cohen, who cut a plea deal and implicated Trump in his campaign finance violations to cover up the 2016 candidate’s adulterous affairs. Back in March, Trump railed against Cohen’s 36-month sentence and warned against the Justice Department granting any more leniency to Cohen for the attorney’s cooperative appearance before Congress.

And Trump’s “cannot allow” language was clearly read as suggesting that he might pardon or commute Stone’s sentence, a move that would please a right-wing base that cheers Stone and celebrates him as a defiant hero.

 

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