Roger Stone makes an appearance outside his home with a double peace sign on July 12, 2020 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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A federal judge on Monday ordered the parties to Roger Stone’s criminal case to clarify the “scope” of President Donald Trump’s executive action to commute the prison sentence of his former ally.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s request came in response to “questions raised by the United States Probation Office,” especially the question of whether Trump’s leniency applies to “the sentence of imprisonment alone or also the period supervised release, “he said in an order on Stone’s case file.
Jackson, a judge at the United States District Court in Washington, DC, also requested a copy of Trump’s executive order.
Trump on Friday night commuted Stone’s 40-month prison term just days before the 67-year-old Republican operative showed up at a federal correctional institution in Georgia.
The White House announcement about the commutation proclaimed: “Roger Stone is now a free man!” – but the question of whether the 24-month probation term of Stone’s sentence still applies remains unclear.
Those two years of supervised release would go into effect after Stone completed his 40 months behind bars for lying to Congress, obstruction, and witness tampering. Stone was also sentenced to pay a $ 20,000 fine.
When asked later Monday at a press conference about the president’s commutation scope, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “I don’t have the exact details for you on that, but I can give tracing”.
The copy of Trump’s executive order and requested clarifications will be delivered to Jackson on Tuesday, the day Stone was scheduled to enter prison.
A Stone attorney did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Jackson’s order.
Stone was convicted of seven criminal charges after being indicted by a grand jury as part of former special adviser Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The charges related to Stone’s efforts during that election to obtain information from WikiLeaks about emails stolen by Russian agents from campaign chief Hillary Clinton, as well as from the Democratic National Committee.
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