Trump criticizes ‘very unfair’ sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone

President Trump in an early morning tweet on Tuesday described federal prosecutors’ recommendation that his longtime associate Roger Stone serve between seven and nine years in prison as “very unfair” and said that such a “miscarriage of justice” should not be allowed.

“This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” Trump said, sharing a message from a Daily Caller reporter about federal prosecutors’ recommendation for Stone’s prison sentence.

This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2020

The tweet marked Trump’s first reaction to the recommended sentence for his longtime associate, who was found guilty of lying to Congress and witness tampering last fall. Justice Department prosecutors recommended in a Monday filing that Stone serve between 7 and 9 years in prison, in accordance with federal guidelines.

The government wrote that such a sentence would “accurately reflect the seriousness of his crimes and promote respect for the law.”

Stone’s crimes were uncovered in the course of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s now-concluded Russia investigation, which Trump frequently referred to as a “witch hunt.”

Stone was convicted in November of seven counts of obstructing and lying to Congress and witness tampering related to his contacts with the Trump campaign regarding WikiLeaks in 2016.

Tasked with investigating Russia’s 2016 election interference and the Trump campaign’s contacts with Moscow, Mueller concluded his work last March, writing in a lengthy report that the investigation did not uncover a conspiracy between the campaign and the Kremlin.

Still, the investigation swept up a number of Trump campaign associates — six either pleaded guilty or were charged with crimes.

Trump has described the treatment of his campaign as unfair, and his remarks about former aides like Stone and former national security adviser Michael Flynn have triggered speculation that he may look to pardon them.

Asked whether he would pardon Stone, Trump told reporters in December that he hadn’t thought about it but went on to describe Stone as a “good person” and said he had been treated unfairly.

“I’ve known Roger over the years, he’s a nice guy. A lot of people like him. And he got hit very hard, as did Gen. Flynn and as did a lot of other people,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. “Now they’re finding out it was all a big hoax.”

Trump and his Republican allies have long claimed that FBI agents were motivated by bias in opening the investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia.

A recent Justice Department inspector general report found no evidence that bias motivated decisions to open investigations into Trump campaign associates, though it found serious flaws in applications used to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. Page was ultimately not charged in the course of the investigation.