Amy Berman Jackson tore into Trump’s longtime friend and reminded the court ‘he was prosecuted for covering up for the president’

'This is not just Roger being Roger': Stone gets 40 months – and a scolding from the judge

Roger Stone, a longtime friend of Donald Trump and a self-styled dirty trickster of American politics, showed little emotion as he stood, squeezed between his defense team, at the front of the courtroom to await his sentence on Thursday.

“Unsurprisingly, I have a lot to say,” the federal district court judge Amy Berman Jackson began.

She was aware, of course, of the extraordinary public interest surrounding this high-stakes case that last week triggered a political firestorm at the Department of Justice over fears of political influence. In recent weeks, Jackson said, there have been letters and calls to the chamber, op-eds in every major newspaper, hours of punditry on cable news, and, perhaps most remarkable of all, a stream of tweets from the president of the United States, who has attacked her as biased.

“The only people who think this is easy [are] the people who don’t have to make the decision,” she lamented from the bench.

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Stone’s presence in her courtroom on Thursday had nothing to do with his political views or personal association. He was there, Jackson said, because “Roger Stone characteristically inserted himself smack in the middle of one of the most incendiary issues of the day”.

His sentence had nothing to do with “who his friends are or who his enemies are,” Jackson said. At issue, she explained, is only what he has been convicted of: attempting to sabotage a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“He was not prosecuted for standing up for the president,” she said. “He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.”

She laced into the defense offered by Stone’s attorneys in response to his conviction on charges that he lied to congressional investigators and attempted to block the testimony of a witness, which she said amounted to: “‘So what?’”

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“Of all the circumstances in this case, that may be the most pernicious,” Jackson said, in comments that quickly traveled far beyond the E Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington. “The truth still exists, the truth still matters.”

Stone stood unflinching, hands clasped in front of him, as she continued her excoriation.

“Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn’t … his belligerence, his pride in his own lies, are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy,” she said emphatically.

The judge forcefully rejected claims by Stone and his supporters that law enforcement was carrying out a political vendetta against the president by prosecuting his longtime friend.

“There was nothing unfair, phony, or disgraceful about the investigation or the prosecution,” she said.

He lied about a matter of great national and international significance. This is not campaign hi-jinks Amy Berman Jackson

Jackson has overseen several of the high-profile cases stemming from the special counsel’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, including the prosecutions of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman and Rick Gates, his former deputy campaign chairman. But Stone’s case – which turned in part on a Godfather reference, alleged threats made against a therapy dog and a series of profane texts messages that Jackson read from the bench on Thursday – was perhaps the most colorful.

She accepted that Stone had cultivated a reputation as an “agent provocateur” who is belligerent and hyperbolic – noting humorously that these are descriptions of him from “people who wrote [to the court] on his behalf”.

“The problem is that nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t a stunt,” she said, adding: “The defendant lied about a matter of great national and international significance. This is not campaign hi-jinks. This is not just Roger being Roger.”

The prosecution team had originally recommended a sentence of seven to nine years, which Trump decried earlier this month as “horrible and unfair”. Almost immediately, William Barr, the attorney general, intervened and overruled the prosecutors, recommending a far more lenient sentence. Jackson called the what the justice department did “unprecedented”.

In what appeared to be a reference to the president’s running Twitter commentary on the case, Jackson said: “The court cannot be influenced by those comments. They were entirely inappropriate.”

Nevertheless, she believed the initial recommendation was unduly punitive. Probation, however, would not fit the gravity of the crimes committed, she said.

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In the end, she arrived at her decision: Stone would be sentenced to 40 months in prison. But the case is not quite closed. Stone would not be imprisoned until the judge rules on a motion brought by his defense team requesting a new trial.

Emerging from the courthouse after his sentencing, Stone looked bemused by the media frenzy. He was, after all, a man who believed the “only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” But there was no flamboyant displays, no Nixon-esque victory salute. He simply placed a hat atop his head and slipped into a waiting car.

After the sentencing, a representative for Stone appealed to Trump directly.

“It falls on President Trump to use the power of a pardon as the final means of checks and balances to right this horrible wrong,” the spokeswoman, Kristin Davis, said in a statement.

Speaking in Las Vegas at a graduation ceremony for prisoners leaving incarceration on Thursday, Trump said he was following the case “ very closely”.

“I want to see it play out to its fullest,” he told the graduates, “because Roger has a very good chance of exoneration, in my opinion.”