Clinton: Trump used his pardon power to ‘shut up Roger Stone’

Hillary Clinton said Monday that President Trump used his pardon power to “shut up Roger Stone” by commuting his sentence.

The former Democratic presidential candidate told MSNBC’s “The Reidout” that she believes Stone threatened Trump privately and publicly that if he had to go to prison, he would speak out about “what they actually did” during the 2016 election.

“This is a continuation of the cover up,” she said.

“What he did was to use the awesome power of commutation as part of the pardon power of the president to basically shut up Roger Stone so that Roger Stone would not spill any more beans about what actually happened and how much Donald Trump actually knew,” she added.

“This is a continuation of the cover up.”

Hillary Clinton says President Trump commuted Roger Stone’s prison sentence so that he “would not spill any more beans about what actually happened” in the 2016 election. pic.twitter.com/BTuFGfLBkl

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 21, 2020

Earlier this month, Trump commuted his former campaign adviser’s sentence of three years and four months in prison for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing an official proceeding. 

Stone was the last of six Trump associates to be charged in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia. Mueller concluded that the Trump campaign welcomed Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, but said he did not have evidence to charge campaign members with conspiring to interfere in the election. 

The president had repeatedly signaled that he would get involved with Stone’s case and commuted the sentence days before Stone was set to go to prison. A White House statement announcing the commutation said Stone was the “victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency.”

After his commutation, Stone said he plans to help campaign for Trump’s reelection.