Trump’s longtime friend and political adviser, Roger Stone, was just sentenced by Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Federal prosecutors initially suggested that he should serve 7–9 years in prison for false statements to Congress and the other ways he meddled with the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation in 2017 and 2018.

But the case has become a flashpoint for concerns of presidential influence over the Justice Department. The DOJ last week watered down its sentencing recommendation, prompting the entire team of career DOJ attorneys who had been leading Stone’s prosecution to withdraw from the case.