Trump loyalist and ally Roger Stone was sentenced Thursday to 40 months in federal prison
, following an extraordinary move by Attorney General William Barr to back off his Justice Department's original sentencing recommendation.
He was convicted in November on all seven counts of an indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election. She said during the hearing that Stone's use of social media to stoke public sentiment against the prosecution and the court was intended to reach a wide audience, including using a photo of Jackson with crosshairs superimposed."Why are you the one who is standing here today?" Jackson asked federal prosecutor John Crabb, who took over the case after the original trial team quit.
Any jail sentence seems likely to draw a public rebuke from Trump, who maintains that Stone's entire case is just an aspect of the ongoing "witch hunt" against him and his allies by bitter Democrats and the "deep state" inside the FBI and the Justice Department. Stone has denied wrongdoing and consistently criticized the case against him as politically motivated. He did not take the stand during his trial and his lawyers did not call any witnesses in his defense.
But Justice Department officials said they were caught off guard by the recommendation, even though Shea, the acting U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., is a former top aide to Barr. The attorney general ordered a new memorandum with a less harsh punishment, though it left provided no specifics and left the details to the judge.
The evidence presented in the trial didn't directly address Mueller's conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to tip the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor.
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