Roger Stone prosecutors quit over sentencing recommendation
Trump condemned length of prison time; David Spunt has the details.
President Trump sounded off on Twitter on the four Justice Department (DOJ) attorneys who quit the Roger Stone case on Tuesday and accused them of cutting and running for political reasons.
Trump asked if the lawyers were loyal to former special counsel Robert Mueller and said Stone's case was the offshoot of an illegal investigation.
"Who are the four prosecutors (Mueller people?) who cut and ran after being exposed for recommending a ridiculous 9 year prison sentence to a man that got caught up in an investigation that was illegal, the Mueller Scam, and shouldn’t ever even have started? 13 Angry Democrats?" Trump tweeted.
The four prosecutors withdrew from their posts on Tuesday in what appeared to be a dramatic protest just hours after senior leaders at the DOJ said they would take the extraordinary step of overruling the prosecutors' judgment, by seeking a lesser sentence for Stone.
DOJ PROSECUTORS RESIGN AFTER TOP BRASS REVERSES COURSE ON ROGER STONE SENTENCING
Fox News reported earlier Tuesday that the top brass at the DOJ was "shocked" that prosecutors handling the case had recommended that Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentence 67-year-old Stone to between 87 and 108 months in prison.
The prosecutors said in the Monday filing that Stone's conduct post-indictment -- including violating the judge's social media gag orders -- merited a sentence much longer than the 15 to 21 months that the defense said was advisable.
Trump also tweeted about Jackson on Tuesday evening, asking if she was tied to Paul Manafort's case and his placement in solitary confinement.
"Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure?" the president said. "How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!"
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A senior DOJ official confirmed to Fox News that senior leadership officials made the call to reverse the initial sentencing recommendation because the filing was extreme and inconsistent with how prosecutors had briefed DOJ leadership on how they would proceed with the case.
Fox News' Gregg Re, Jake Gibson and David Spunt contributed to this report.
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