Judge seeks copy of order commuting Roger Stone sentence

A federal judge on Monday sought a copy of the executive order commuting Roger Stone’s prison sentence in order to address questions about the scope of President Trump’s commutation.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in an order that she is seeking the document in response to questions from the U.S. Probation Office. Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, said she needs to determine whether the commutation “involves the sentence of incarceration alone or also the period of supervised release.”

The Justice Department later released the executive grant of clemency, showing that Trump commuted the entirety of Stone’s supervised release in addition to remitting any unpaid remainder of the $20,000 fine he had been ordered to pay by Berman Jackson.

The White House said late Friday that Trump had signed an executive grant of clemency commuting the sentence of his longtime friend, describing Stone as a “victim” of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s “improper” investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In February, Stone was sentenced to three years and four months in prison after being convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing an official proceeding. Berman Jackson also sentenced Stone to two years of supervised release following his prison term and ordered him to pay a $20,000 fine.

Trump’s decision to commute Stone’s sentence has proved highly controversial, drawing immediate rebuke from Democrats and other critics as well as pushback from some prominent Republicans.

“Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president,” tweeted Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Saturday.

Mueller also broke his silence to write an op-ed defending his investigation and saying that Stone remains a convicted felon and “rightly so.”

Stone’s allies in the media and elsewhere had advocated for Trump to issue a pardon or commute his sentence. In a statement issued Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany described him as a victim of an unfair process and declared him a “free man.” Stone was due to report to prison Tuesday, after an appeals court denied his motion to delay his prison sentence over concerns about the novel coronavirus.

Updated at 4:30 p.m.