According to HuffPost, Roger Stone, the political consultant and longtime confidant to Donald Trump, has been sentenced to 40 months in prison on Thursday, a much more lenient sentence than the seven to nine years that prosecutors initially recommended he serve in federal prison.
Stone was convicted of lying to Congress about his connection to the information leak site, WikiLeaks. The information site, which houses tons of detrimental files, released hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. Stone denied having anything to do with the release of the emails. However, former Trump campaign official, Rick Gates, testified that he was in communication with Stone and believed he had inside access to the website.
Earlier this month, Attorney General William Barr and the rest of the Department of Justice suddenly rejected the prosecutor’s sentencing recommendation, which ultimately lead to the entire prosecution team resigning. The move came shortly after Trump took to Twitter to speak out against what he felt was unfair treatment of Stone, calling it “a horrible and very unfair situation” for his friend.
This controversial move lead to the 1,100 member Federal Judges Association to host an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss concerns that the DOJ may be inappropriately interfering with political cases. Cases of this nature are to be handled by federal judges and prosecutors.
Although lawyers for Stone attempted to delay sentencing, the three-year prison stint was handed down by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who felt that while the seven to nine year sentence “would be greater than necessary,” Stone is no innocent victim in the case.
“He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.”
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