DOJ Watchdog Finds No Improper Pressure to Lower Roger Stone Sentence

Facts

• A report from the US Justice Department's (DOJ) inspector general, released last week, found no evidence of improper political interference in the 2020 decision to soften the sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation.^[1]
• This comes as the internal watchdog interviewed two dozen current and former DOJ attorneys, including Timothy Shea and Aaron Zelinsky. Former Attorney General Bill Barr refused to participate in the probe.^[2]
• According to the years-long investigation, Shea's 'ineffectual leadership' was to blame for the 'highly unusual' move to file a second sentencing memo retracting the recommendation in February 2020.^[3]
• Federal prosecutors, including Zelinsky, had originally recommended Stone receive seven to nine years in prison, but the defendant was eventually sentenced to three years behind bars — and pardoned in December of that year.^[4]
• The memo softening the recommended range followed criticism from then-Pres. Donald Trump, with all four line prosecutors quitting the case on beliefs that Stone received preferential treatment for political reasons.^[5]
• Stone, a longtime Trump ally, was convicted in November 2019 on seven felony charges in connection with former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.^[6]

Sources: ^[1]Associated Press, ^[2]Washington Examiner, ^[3]Washington Post, ^[4]The Washington Times, ^[5]CNN and ^[6]New York Times.

Narratives

• Republican narrative, as provided by Newsmax. This report stresses not only that there's no evidence whatsoever that the Trump administration improperly pressured attorneys to lower Roger Stone's sentencing recommendation, but also that the Office of Inspector General found that Barr called for a fix in range long before the former president denounced the proposal. Such claims have finally been debunked.
• Democratic narrative, as provided by MSNBC. Trump and his supporters have overhyped these latest findings as if the absence of evidence proves there was no improper political influence over the prosecutorial decision-making in the Roger Stone case. Given that Trump quickly commuted his friend's sentence later in a blatant case of favoritism, it's clear that politics did play an improper role.