Trump saves another convicted felon and long time supporter from prison

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison sentence of yet another convicted criminal who has been his long time friend and supporter, alleging that he is a "victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency."
The Presidential clemency for self-described dirty trickster and Republican operative Roger Stone came just before he was scheduled to report to a federal prison to serve a 40-month term after a jury unanimously found him guilty of seven counts of felony, including lying to Congress and obstructing justice in course of the Mueller investigation.
Stone, 67, told wire services that Trump phoned him on Friday to inform him of the commutation, reminding him of their 40-year friendship. He said he was fearful of catching coronavirus in prison given his age, and having been asthmatic as a child.
The Presidential clemency was widely condemned including in some Republican circles but welcomed by his base that sees no wrong in anything Trump does, including rescuing convicted felons. Critics wondered about the contradiction between Trump’s concern for the health of his criminal friends if they went to prison, and his unconcern about the dangers of coronavirus to kids as he forces schools and colleges across the country to re-open.
"Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president," Republican Senator Mitt Romney, among GOP stalwarts who are increasingly speaking out against Trump, tweeted. Trump’s own Attorney General William Barr had said a few days ago that the prosecution of Roger Stone was "righteous" and the "sentence that the judge ultimately gave was fair."
But Trump, who has fought tooth and nail in courts to hide his tax return and financial information in course of a fervid race-baiting presidency swathed in charges that he is a stooge of Russia, argued in a lengthy statement that Stone's conviction was part of a witchhunt against him by Democrats who could not stomach the 2016 election results, in which he lost the popular vote by 2.86 million votes but won the electoral college to become President. Critics allege that Russia put its finger on the election scale in that enabled Trump to win toss-up states and thus the electoral college.
Trump says the charges are a hoax. "Mr. Stone was charged by the same prosecutors from the Mueller Investigation tasked with finding evidence of collusion with Russia. Because no such evidence exists, however, they could not charge him for any collusion-related crime. Instead, they charged him for his conduct during their investigation. The simple fact is that if the Special Counsel had not been pursuing an absolutely baseless investigation, Mr. Stone would not be facing time in prison," he argued through a White House statement issued by his Press Secretary.
Trump has now issued 25 clemencies during his Presidency, which is historically a low number compared to that given by his predecessors, some of whom pardoned or commuted hundreds, even thousands of people under powers vested in him. But most of them were people unrelated or not known to them personally. Among people Trump pardoned before the Stone clemency are two of his ardent political supporters -- Indian-American Dinesh D’Souza, who was convicted for campaign finance violations, and Conrad Black, a former media mogul who was convicted of mail fraud.
Interestingly, the clemency for Stone was a commutation, not a pardon, which would have absolved him wrongdoing; the commutation leaves his conviction standing although he will now be a free man.