Roger Stone
The president of the United States Donald Trump has commuted his long time ally Roger Stone days before he was scheduled to go to prison.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has stated that "Roger Stone is now a free man" adding that there allegedly was "never any collusion between the Trump Campaign, or the Trump Administration, with Russia". Stone was sentenced to prison as a part of the investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign over lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction.
CNN and Buzzfeed obtained further reports and notes from "special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election [...] in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits by BuzzFeed News and CNN." The notes contain interviews with major witnesses during Robert Mueller's investigations, including Steve Bannon and multiple witnesses whose names had been retracted.
Some of the key takeaways of these notes are:
- Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign manager, expressed severe mistrust of Roger Stone, accusing Stone of having leaked damaging information to the press to get Paul Manafort as a replacement for Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager. Bannon called Stone a "nasty piece of work" with a "sketchy background."
- Bannon described Trump asking frequently about "dirt" on Hillary Clinton and her missing emails to hurt her campaign. According to Bannon, Trump assumed the emails could contain information that would link "crooked Hillary" to the conspiracy theory about an illicit uranium deal.
- FBI agents visited a male, unnamed witness who asked "if the agents were there to inquire about the campaign, and about Erik Prince, a military contractor and unofficial adviser to Trump’s campaign."
The United States President Donald Trump said publically that "Roger has a very good chance of exoneration" but we said he would do "anything in terms of the great powers bestowed upon a president of the United States" meaning his right to hand out a presidential pardon.
After his conviction in November 2019 on seven felony charges, including witness tampering and lying to investigators the Republican and former Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison.
Over 1,100 former officials of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) signed and published an open letter as a statement to events of the Roger Stone case. Following the previous events - Attorney General William Barr lowered the prison sentence recommendation for Roger Stone after Donald Trump tweeted about it - the DOJ alumni are calling for Barr to resign.