Judge Amy Berman Jackson has sentenced Trump ally Roger Stone to 40 months in prison. The sentence follows an outcry over President Donald Trump’s interference in the case and the radically different sentencing memos that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued earlier this month.
Last year, Roger was found guilty on seven criminal courts in federal court, including witness tampering and lying to Congress.
The sentence that Jackson handed down was neither as harsh as what the DOJ originally recommended nor as lenient as what it recommended in a subsequent sentencing memo. On Monday, February 12, the DOJ issued a sentencing memo that recommended seven to nine years in prison for the veteran GOP operative and self-described “dirty trickster.” But after Trump posted an angry tweet lambasting that recommendation, the DOJ issued a new sentencing memo the following day and recommended a much more lenient sentence — inspiring four federal prosecutors to resign from Stone’s case. Three of them are still with the DOJ, although one of the four left the DOJ altogether. Continue reading.