Former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo on Wednesday announced the launch of a committee to demand a presidential pardon for longtime Republican political operative Roger Stone.
The announcement was made one day after four prosecutors resigned in protest of Justice Department leadership overruling their sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years in prison. Instead, the Justice Department said incarceration “far less” than the initial recommendation would be “reasonable.”
Stone is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 20.
Mr. Caputo said in a statement the Stone prosecutors were “out of control.”
“You don’t have to look any further than the federal prosecutors who railroaded Roger to know that his prosecution was out of control,” he said. “They called for seven to nine years of incarceration — after misleading their DOJ bosses — for charges which, as the president tweeted, a connected insider served only two months.
“The entire investigation was a political hit job, and we believe the MAGA movement agrees: the president should pardon Roger Stone,” the statement continued.
The Pardon Roger J. Stone Committee includes old friends raising money to pay for a legal appeal and to provide for Stone’s family, who have exhausted their savings after paying millions of dollars in legal fees.
Mr. Caputo, the group’s chairman, said it has already collected 120,000 signatures in four days on a petition to pardon Stone.
Stone was convicted in a criminal trial last year of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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