Roger Stone to Be Pardoned? White House Seems to Be Moving Toward It

Roger Stone, a longtime political provocateur and living legend in Washington DC, was one of the first close acquaintances of President Trump to find himself targeted by the RussiaGate ruse.

The entire Robert Mueller-led fiasco took aim at Stone and former national security adviser Michael Flynn early on, hoping to pin something on these gentlemen in order to exert pressure on the Trump administration to play along with the half-cooked conspiracy theory.  Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI, and had his charges dropped after after it was shown through handwritten notes that the FBI had considered tricking Flynn into lying to them.

For Stone, the charges were slightly more serious, but still did not amount to some grand hypothesis about Donald Trump being a Russian double agent as the left side of the aisle seemed to insist.

Now, with only a few days before Roger Stone is set to head to prison, it looks as though the President could come swooping in with a pardon to save his skin.

Reached by phone while under house arrest in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last week, Stone told RealClearPolitics that he doesn’t want to go. His age and a history of respiratory problems, he says, place him at greater risk of catching the Coronavirus, and he would like a pardon from his longtime friend and former boss.

“I guess if I had to make an appeal, it would be that on humanitarian grounds, as an act of mercy, as well as of justice, I would pray that the president uses his incredible powers of clemency,” said the president’s onetime adviser.

Trump’s language on the subject seemed to indicate that a decision had been made.

“I think Roger Stone was treated very unfairly. I think he was a victim of an illegal investigation, the Mueller investigation. To me, it was totally illegal. It should have never been allowed to happen,” the president said.

“He was also a victim of a very unfair court trial,” the president added in a reference to the jury forewoman who shared posts on social media critical of Trump and his longtime political ally.

“It was a disgraceful situation that was allowed to take place. With that, you will see what I’m going to do,” the president concluded.

Several online petitions have long been circulating, in which signees implored Donald Trump to pardon Roger Stone by the tens of thousands.  It appears as though the White House has listened.