Trump scraps prison term of Stone, who lied under oath
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of his long-time friend and adviser Roger Stone on Friday, sparing him from prison after he was convicted of lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
Trump’s decision to commute Stone’s sentence days before he was due to report to prison marked the Republican president’s most assertive intervention to protect an associate in a criminal case and his latest use of executive clemency to benefit an ally. Democrats condemned Trump’s action as an assault on the rule of law.
“Roger Stone has already suffered greatly,” the White House said in a statement. “He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!”
Stone was among several Trump associates charged with crimes in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that documented Russian interference to boost Trump’s 2016 candidacy.
Mueller’s investigation found extensive contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russians.
TRUMP THREATENS TO PULL TAX EXEMPTION
In his push to get schools and colleges to reopen this fall, President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Friday he was ordering the treasury department to re-examine the tax-exempt status of schools that he says provide “radical indoctrination” instead of education. “Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” he tweeted.
“Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues.Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”
The Republican president did not explain what prompted the remark or which schools would be reviewed.But the threat is just one more that Trump has issued against schools as he ratchets up pressure to get them to open this fall. Twice this week Trump threatened to cut federal funding for schools that don’t reopen, including in an earlier tweet on Friday.
It’s unclear, however, on what grounds Trump could have a school’s tax-exempt status terminated