Hillary Clinton has taken to Twitter to denounce Donald Trump as a “tyrant” over his efforts to influence the sentencing of Republican political operative Roger Stone.

“Trump is using the powers of the presidency like a tyrant – now, to reward accomplices and go after witnesses who dared to speak against him,” said the former first lady, secretary of state and defeated Democratic 2016 presidential candidate. “This should concern and anger us all.”

Clinton is the latest to add her voice to the chorus of outrage rising against the president – just a week after he was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial – over his attempt to intervene in the Stone case and save the flamboyant, self-styled “agent provocateur” of right-wing politics from the seven to nine year prison sentence the prosecution at his trial had recommended.

Stone, 67, was convicted of witness tampering, obstructing justice and lying to investigators by a federal court in November 2019, the charges arising from FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russian efforts to hack the 2016 presidential election.

“This is a horrible and very unfair situation,” the president tweeted earlier this week as the date of his former adviser’s sentencing approached. “The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”

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The US Justice Department subsequently announced it would seek a softer sentence, prompting all four prosecutors in the case to resign in protest.

The president subsequently denied asking his attorney general, William Barr, to step in on Stone’s behalf when quizzed by reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon while maintaining that he had the “absolute right” to make such a request.

The following morning, Trump appeared to contradict himself by congratulating Barr in another tweet for “taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought”, alleging that “the Mueller scam was improperly brought & tainted” and that the special counsel himself had lied to Congress.

He also refused to rule out using his presidential powers to formally pardon Stone, a gesture that would only further inflame the situation.

Barr has since consented to appear before the House Judiciary Committee at the invitation of chairman Jerrold Nadler to take questions on the apparent politicisation of the Justice Department since he took office almost exactly a year ago.

Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren has nevertheless called for Barr to resign and warned the intervention marks a “descent into authoritarianism” by an administration newly emboldened by the acquittal verdict.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer called the attorney general a Trump “enabler”, adding wryly: “That’s a kind word for it.”

With everyone from lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff to the American Bar Association joining in the condemnation, even robust Trump ally and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham expressed disquiet about the president’s actions. “I don’t think any of us should be tweeting about an ongoing case,” he said on Wednesday.

Clinton was clearly watching the week’s events unfold with intense interest, responding to one of the president’s conspiracy-minded posts questioning the integrity of presiding justice Amy Berman Jackson on Wednesday by asking: “Do you realize intimidating judges is the behavior of failed-state fascists?”

“The rule of law & our democracy are in crisis,” she had commented a day earlier.

Clinton finds herself returning to the limelight as she promotes a new four-part Hulu documentary series about her life due to air on the streaming site in March, just as the country gears up for what promises to be another bruising election year.