Trump Congratulates Barr After Intervention in Stone Sentencing

Critics, including Hillary Clinton, have compared the president’s conduct to authoritarian regimes.

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump praised Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday for intervening to reduce Roger Stone’s sentencing recommendation, a move that came after Trump complained on Twitter that the initial recommendation, put forward by the Justice Department’s own career prosecutors, had been too severe against his longtime political adviser.

Four prosecutors who had worked on the Stone case have since withdrawn.

It was the latest in an extraordinary series of fast-moving developments surrounding Stone’s sentencing this week for obstructing a congressional investigation. The burgeoning scandal has since renewed questions over Barr’s apparent willingness to use the Justice Department to bend to Trump’s various political demands, as new reports show that Barr has seized control over a number of legal matters significant to the president.

On Monday, career prosecutors at the department released a filing memo recommending a sentence of up to nine years for Stone’s crimes that included making false statements to Congress, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. Hours after the memo’s release, Trump tweeted his displeasure. “This is a horrible and very unfair situation,” he wrote. “The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”

Sixteen hours later, the Justice Department released a new filing calling its previous recommendation “excessive,” and four prosecutors who had worked on the case abruptly withdrew.

But Trump didn’t stop there. Amid the shock over Barr’s intervention, the president on Tuesday attacked the federal judge who had presided over his former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s case before moving on later in the night to accuse the four prosecutors of political bias.

Democrats are now demanding an investigation into the Justice Department. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate