President Donald J. Trump granted an executive grant of clemency to his longtime friend Roger Stone on July 10, 2020. The president commuted the sentence in its entirety. The 40 months of scheduled jail time, the two years of supervised release, the $20,000 and a $700 special assessment fee disappeared with this clemency grant. The legality of this is not up for discussion: President Trump is well within his ability to pardon anyone; although President Trump has claimed he would be able to pardon himself if need be. This latter part is up for debate, but that’s for another day.

Who is Roger Stone?

As we are all aware, the 2016 campaign was one for the books. The first part of the Trump presidency has been riddled with many allegations of Russian interference and a love and admiration for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president.

When special counsel Robert Mueller investigated the alleged Russian interference and collusion with the 2016 Trump campaign (a lifetime ago), the investigators came across Roger Stone. They believed Stone was one of the links between the WikiLeaks leak and the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks being tied to the Russians. WikiLeaks released over a period of time hacked emails from the Clinton campaign’s chairman, John Podesta. 

Over 30 indictments resulted from the special investigation conducted by Mueller. Roger Stone ended up being convicted of lying to Congress and witness tampering. Stone was convicted by a jury on all counts and was sentenced then to the 40-month long prison stint, $20,000 and two years supervised release and 250 hours of community service.

Initially, federal prosecutors had recommended that Mr. Stone serve a 7- to 9-year sentence, but President Trump considered this to be “horrible” and “very unfair,” or so he tweeted. Then the Department of Justice (DOJ) put out a memo that stated that perhaps 7 to 9 years would be a bit “excessive” and “unwarranted” and the courts could decide on their own, which eventually led to the 40-month long prison sentence. However, all four original prosecutors on the case withdrew due to the dissonance between the leadership of the DOJ and the federal prosecutors’ precedent.

Donald and Roger

Trump’s relationship with Stone dates back to the 1980s. Both were in the same circles, professionally and politically. Stone worked for Trump in the 1990s as a lobbyist in the casino industry. Mr. Stone has been an advocate and believer of Donald Trump ever since then. He encouraged Trump to run for office in 1988. Trump ended up deciding against it, but it did plant the seed for what would later become his presidential exploratory committee in 2000. Of course, that did not pan out either, but in 2016 Trump became the 45th president of the United States.

His friend and longtime adviser, Roger Stone, had finally accomplished his dream.

Stone was part of the 2016 Trump campaign, but was fired or quit in 2015. What exactly happened is not clear. President Trump claims he fired him while Stone claims he quit. But one thing is for certain: both still were friends.

I have read President Trump’s “Trump: The Art of the Deal” and flipped through a few other of his books. One of the themes that comes through is loyalty. President Trump seems to value loyalty above all else. If anything, Roger Stone has proven to be an ally and supporter of Trump for decades. Therefore, it makes sense President Trump used the powers vested to commute his friend’s sentence. A sentence Trump thought was unfair and came out of a witch hunt investigation. 

Other Pardons, Commutations

Presidents in the past have enacted controversial pardons and commutations. President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich on his last day of office, and this was a very controversial pardon. Rich had ties to the president via his ex-wife being a prominent fundraiser for the Democrats and this also looked (and most likely was) to be an abuse of power. While Obama had the most commutations in recent history, they were mostly toward people who had low-level crimes but unusually long sentences. Obama did pardon retired Gen. James Cartwright, who was charged with making false statements about disclosure of classified information. Besides that, Obama did not pardon any of his friends, as there were no controversies or probes into Obama (at least that we know of).

Joe Arpaio

The Trump presidency has been very unconventional. He provided a full pardon for former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a hardliner in immigration. While he was sheriff in Maricopa County in Arizona, he set up the Tent City jail in 1993, where he made inmates wear pink underwear. For years, many activists had been trying to remove him from office, and after 24 years as a sheriff, in 2016, he was ousted by Democrat Paul Penzone. He was already experiencing some legal problems due to his racial profiling, and finally in 2017, he was found guilty of criminal contempt of court. That was until President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio later that year.

Two Republican senators have voiced their disdain for what the president had done in the Roger Stone case. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, took to Twitter and called it an “Unprecedented, historic corruption.” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa, made a statement in a more toned down dislike calling it a “mistake.“

Fair and Righteous

A few days before the commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence, Attorney General William Barr had sat down for an interview with Pierre Thomas. Barr said he thought the prosecution was “righteous” and the sentencing for Stone was “fair.” He does state in the interview that it’s ultimately the “president’s prerogative” if Stone gets a pardon or commutation.

Regardless of whether his sentencing was fair, Roger Stone did lie to Congress about his involvement with WikiLeaks and a hacker, Guccifer 2.0, who was part of the Russian disinformation campaign. Lying to our government under oath should have no consequences? Just because the president has the power to grant clemency, should it be used to bail out your friends? Should we not expect our presidents to use judgment and grant clemency in extreme cases where justice was not served properly? 

There are thousands of innocent people doing years behind bars. Why does a rich man that lied in a federal investigation deserve to get a free get-out-of-jail card simply because he is buddies with the president? Perhaps Roger Stone knows something he isn’t telling us.