President Donald Trump has declined to answer press questions about a potential pardon of political operative Roger Stone. “I don’t want to say yet,” Trump told reporters at an Oval Office event regarding whether he was considering an executive pardon for his long-time ally. “People were hurt viciously and badly by these corrupt people. I want to thank the Justice Department for seeing this horrible thing.”
Trump has expressed outrage over prosecutors’ recommendation for a lengthy prison sentence for Stone – tweeting that it was a “disgrace” and that it was “[a] horrible and unfair situation.”
The president took a moment at an Oval Office photo-op to thank the Justice Department for intervening on the sentencing recommendation after the announcement Tuesday.
The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it would not recommend a sentence for Stone reversing the prosecutors’ recommendations.
Stone was charged with obstruction of and lying to Congress and witness tampering last November.
The DOJ’s action led all four federal prosecutors to swiftly resign from the case.
“I’m not concerned about anything, concerned about nothing,” Trump stated when questioned about whether he found the prosecutors’ exit disturbing. “They ought to go back to school and learn. Because I’ll tell you, the way they treated people, nobody should be treated like that.”
Congressional Democrats assembled Wednesday to call for an emergency hearing to probe into the DOJ’s actions.
Attorney General William Barr has agreed to testify in March, the House Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday.
