Roger Stone Leaves Federal Court

Donald Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone leaves the courthouse in Washington, DC, Thursday, February 20, after he is sentenced to 40 months in prison for impeding a congressional investigation.

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced President Donald Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone to 40 months in prison, about half as long as the prosecutors’ original recommendation for a term of seven to nine years.

But Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court of Washington ruled that the sentence would not be imposed until Stone has exhausted his efforts for a new trial. Stone’s lawyers say he deserves a retrial because one of the jurors who convicted him was biased against Trump.

The sentence amounts to a setback for Stone and Trump, who called the seven to nine years recommended by Justice Department prosecutors “horrible and very unfair,” and later praised Attorney General William Barr for “taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and should not have been brought.” The president Thursday again weighed in on the trial on Twitter Thursday before the sentence was announced, suggesting that his conviction on charges of lying to Congress was unfair.