President Trump’s ex-confidant Roger Stone faces a long prison sentence for his role in the Russia affair. Prosecutors are demanding up to nine years in prison. His offenses were not a slip.
US attorneys are demanding seven to nine years in prison for Roger Stone, a former confidante of President Donald Trump, for crimes in the Russia affair. Stone’s behavior was not a “one-off misjudgment”, according to an application submitted in the evening (local time).
In seven cases, the former adviser was charged with false testimony to Congress, interference with witnesses and interference with investigations in the House of Representatives. Stone was found guilty in November and the verdict is due next week. He denied wrongdoing and spoke of politically motivated allegations.
The background is research by special investigator Robert Mueller on the question of whether Trump’s campaign specifically coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 US election. In his report, Mueller ultimately saw no sufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy. But Stone is Trump’s sixth confidante or advisor, who was found guilty of misconduct as part of the Mueller investigation.
Focus on hacker attack on Democrats
The allegations are about a hacker attack on the Democratic Union’s email server in the 2016 election campaign, which Russia was suspected of. At that time, it came out that the Wikileaks disclosure platform came into the possession of more than 19,000 messages from the party. Witnesses in the Stone trial testified that Trump’s campaign saw the then-presidential candidate’s confidante as a kind of middleman who was supposed to get information beforehand about potentially harmful material about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton that hacked the emails.
The prosecutor accuses Stone of having lied to Congress about discussions he had about Wikileaks. He is also said to have instigated a witness to misrepresentation in the matter. The prosecutors stated that the prison sentence of between 87 and 108 months’ imprisonment should deter others, who also consider false statements, interference with congressional investigations or interference with witnesses, the prosecutors said.
– ,
