Justice Department denies giving Roger Stone special treatment in backing his request to delay prison term

In a filing late Thursday, the Justice Department says it is OK with the request because federal prosecutors are letting all defendants who aren’t a flight risk delay their prison terms during the pandemic.

“The US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has uniformly adhered” this standard for postponements, the filing says. “For that reason — and that reason only — the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia does not oppose” Stone’s motion for a 60-day delay.

Prosecutors note that this nationwide guidance was set by Attorney General William Barr and has been in place since late March, when the coronavirus began spreading rapidly across the US.

For now, Stone is scheduled to report to a federal prison next Tuesday. He has requested a 60-day extension, which, if granted, means he would need to voluntarily surrender on September 3.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson has yet to rule on Stone’s request.

Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison for lying to Congress about his role as a backchannel between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks during the 2016 election. He was also convicted of witness tampering after obstructing Congress’ inquiry into Russian meddling.

He is supposed to serve his sentence at a medium-security federal prison in Jesup, Georgia.

Earlier this week, Stone formally requested the 60-day extension, citing concerns about the pandemic. His lawyers said he has “serious health issues” and that it would be “life-threatening” for Stone to start his prison sentence while the coronavirus was still raging in the country.

Instead of quickly approving Stone’s motion — which was unopposed by the Justice Department — Jackson demanded more information from prosecutors about their correspondence with Stone’s team and about the status of the virus outbreak at the prison.

The Justice Department on Thursday said there are currently zero confirmed coronavirus cases at the federal prison in Georgia where Stone will serve his sentence. In a previous filing, Stone said there had been 25 tests conducted at the facility. The Justice Department says these were done as a precaution for inmates about to be released, and all tests came back negative.

The case has been marred by allegations of political interference by Trump, Barr and other top officials at the Justice Department. A career prosecutor who quit the Stone case in February testified to Congress this week that political appointees at the Justice Department meddled in the case to “cut Stone a break” at sentencing because of his relationship with Trump.

In the new filing, the Justice Department explicitly denied that it tried “to exert any influence” over whether the Bureau of Prisons postponed or adjusted the date of Stone’s surrender.

Stone has publicly asked Trump to pardon him, and Trump says he is considering it. Trump’s critics say this would be a brazen abuse of power — even if it is a legal exercise of presidential authority — because Stone was convicted of lying to Congress specifically to protect Trump.

source: cnn.com