The sentence that Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed on Mr. Stone, while lower than the guideline range that the career prosecutors recommended, is not unusual; in 2018, federal judges imposed sentences outside the guidelines in about a quarter of all cases nationwide. As Judge Jackson said in Thursday’s hearing, she made this decision based on her own assessment of the relevant facts, and she likely would have imposed a sentence below the guideline range irrespective of Mr. Barr’s intervention. This is exactly what the law requires.

But an examination of federal sentencing processes and principles makes clear that Mr. Barr’s intervention in the Stone case is actually considerably worse than it initially appeared.

Some background on federal sentencing: The United States Sentencing Guidelines offer guidance on what kind of penalty a convicted criminal defendant should receive based on the crime and the characteristics of the defendant. The guidelines are nonbinding, and judges are permitted to sentence above or below them. But the guidelines seek to add consistency and fairness to the federal criminal justice system so that similar defendants are treated similarly, and the Justice Department in particular has sought to hew closely to them.

In fact, the Trump administration has made clear, in a document colloquially known as “the Sessions memo,” that it expects prosecutors to consistently push for guidelines sentences. “In most cases,” the Sessions memo says, “recommending a sentence within the advisory guideline range will be appropriate. Recommendations for sentencing departures or variances require supervisory approval, and the reasoning must be documented in the file.”

Recommending a sentence within the guideline range was precisely what the career prosecutors in the Stone case did. They engaged in an exhaustive analysis of the applicable guidelines, supported by ample evidence and careful argument, and asked for a sentence precisely within the range called for by the guidelines.