GOP Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) trashed President Trump’s decision to use his constitutional powers and commute the sentence of Roger Stone.
Romney is famously one of the few GOP Senators who routinely breaks with Trump and today is no different.
Mitt, forgetting about Bill Clinton’s absolute disgraceful pardon of Marc Rich called Trump’s move yesterday to let Roger Stone fight another day “historic corruption.”
“Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president,” Romney said into the void.
From The Hill:
Stone was convicted last year of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction of official proceeding. He was due to report to prison Tuesday before Trump stepped in to commute his sentence.
Some of Trump’s defenders in Congress have rallied around the move, which was expected after the president spoke out in defense of Stone and his former campaign adviser’s prison term loomed.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted Friday before the commutation was announced that “in my view it would be justified” for Trump to intervene, saying, “this was a non-violent, first-time offense.”
Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees the Justice Department, called the initial FBI investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016 and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe “biased and corrupt.”
Stone is the latest individual with ties to Trump to receive clemency, joining supporters like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and financier Michael Milken.
Democrats railed against Trump’s move Friday night, accusing the president of setting up an alternate system of justice for his allies.
Unprecedented, historic corruption: an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) July 11, 2020
