Watchdog finds no improper influence in sentencing recommendation for Trump ally Roger Stone

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Justice Department watchdog investigation found no evidence that politics played an improper role in a decision to propose a lighter prison sentence for Roger Stone, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, according to a report released Wednesday.

The inspector general launched the investigation after four lawyers who prosecuted Stone quit the case in 2020 when top Justice Department officials overruled them and lowered the amount of prison time it would seek for Stone. Stone was later sentenced to 40 months behind bars before Trump commuted his sentence.

The career prosecutors had initially proposed a sentence of between seven and nine years in prison for Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election. Prosecutors later filed a second brief calling the original recommendation excessive.

The inspector general found that then-interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Timothy Shea initially sought advice from a top Justice Department official on what to do about Stone’s sentencing recommendation. Then, the day the sentencing recommendation was due, Shea met with then-Attorney General William Barr and the two discussed how a sentence below federal guidelines would be appropriate, according to the report.

But after their discussion, Shea authorized prosecutors to file the brief seeking the harsher sentence anyway.

When Barr realized the request was not what he and Shea had discussed, he told Justice Department officials it needed to be “fixed,” the report says. That happened before Trump blasted the requested sentence on Twitter as “very horrible and unfair.”

The inspector general noted that the Justice Department’s handling of the sentencing in the Stone case was “highly unusual.” But the watchdog blamed the events on Shea’s “ineffectual leadership,” and said it found no evidence that Justice Department leadership engaged in misconduct or violated department policy.

Shea did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Wednesday.

Shea and Barr’s involvement in the sentencing recommendation “given their status as Administration political appointees and Stone’s relationship with the then President resulted in questions being asked and allegations being made about the Department’s decision making,” the inspector general’s report said.

But it noted there’s no rule prohibiting an attorney general’s involvement in such a matter. And the report noted that even career prosecutors “believed at the time that reasonable minds could differ about the sentencing recommendation.”

It’s “ultimately left to their discretion and judgment, including their assessment of how such involvement will affect public perceptions of the federal justice system and the Department’s integrity, independence, and objectivity,” the inspector general’s report said.