The Feds won't oppose a bid by Trump confidant Roger Stone to delay his upcoming prison sentence, citing new policies implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic
The Justice Department won't oppose a bid by Roger Stone, the longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, to delay an upcoming prison sentence until September, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday night, citing department-wide policies implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson, though, made clear she isn't accepting Stone's contention at face value. After Stone's initial motion to delay his sentence, Jackson ordered the U.S. attorney's office for Washington, D.C. — which prosecuted the case — to submit its own filing weighing in on the matter and also to provide details about recent coronavirus testing at FCI Jesup, the federal prison in Georgia where Stone is expected to be incarcerated.
“At no point since that original designation has the U.S. Attorney’s Office had any role in or attempted to exert any influence over whether BOP should revise the June 30 surrender date,” the government said in its Thursday night filing. Given the history of Stone’s case, Jackson appears to be deeply distrustful of both sides, demanding detailed justification and written support from the defense and prosecution for the kinds of assertions that judges often accept based solely on a lawyer's say-so.
Attorney General William Barr has rejected the suggestion that politics or Trump favoritism played a role in his decision to overrule Zelinsky and other prosecutors to recommend a lesser sentence for Stone. Trump tweeted just before 3 a.m. the next day that the sentence was unfair, and later that day, a top DOJ official filed a revised sentencing recommendation that left the jail term up to the judge but called the original proposal overly harsh. The four prosecutors who handled the case withdrew, and one resigned from DOJ altogether.
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