Judge Gives Roger Stone 'Tongue -Lashing' Before Sentencing Him To 40 Months In Prison | NBC News

Roger Stone, a long-time friend and political agent of Donald Trump, has just been sentenced in federal court to 40

months

in

prison

. Stone was convicted last November of seven felonies, including lying to congressional witnesses, tampering and obstructing House and FBI investigations into Russia. interference in the 2016 election, the

stone

s case has come under intense scrutiny in recent days after President Trump very publicly took on the

stone

s because Attorney General William Barr overturned the

sentencing

recommendation of the US prosecutors' own Department of Justice, prompting his resignation from the case and triggering a lawsuit from Firestone. storm of controversy justice correspondent Pete Williams has been following all of this very closely I was in the Washington courtroom when the sentence was just read a few moments ago Pete good morning good morning Harry Roger Stone did not address the court today his Defense lawyers said that the

judge

should considering his age, his deteriorating health and the fact that he basically never did anything wrong to interfere in the election, they recommended not going to

prison

, which is quite interesting, even though the week The Department of Justice last week sent a revised memo here.

In urging a lower sentence today, prosecutors in the courtroom said the

judge

would still have to consider everything that was in that previously recommended sentence, all of the crime levels that were initially listed and the judge took all of that into account. today and actually gave an extraordinarily long reprimand. To Roger Stone here, for at least the last 30 or 40 minutes, you told him that the important points of this case are that he was not pursued by any political enemy and that, in fact, it was the House Intelligence Committee Republican-controlled Representatives, the one who first suggested that his testimony should be sure that he injected himself directly into the 2016 campaign, said, by falsely claiming to know what WikiLeaks was planning to do with Hillary's hacked emails.

Clinton and Democrats said he could have cultivated the image of a bare-knuckle man. dirty trickster political lawyer, but today I was not judging Roger Stone, the man, or any of those past episodes of his life, which was simply his lie to Congress by falsely telling them that he was in contact with WikiLeaks, that he had contacts that in contact with WikiLeaks and that it was her flagrant lack of respect for government institutions that she said she lied about a matter of great national and international importance now Judge Amie Berman Jackson today did not mention Donald Trump by the name Harry but she did say that This ruling in a criminal case like this should be made by someone who is neutral and disinterested, not someone who benefited politically from Roger Stones' actions, and she said that person's comments without mentioning President Trump were completely inappropriate. , but I don't think anyone in the courtroom.

She thought he meant anyone except Donald Trump, she said his defense during the trial was basically like this, he lied to Congress, he never did anything wrong in the first place and said he did great damage to American democratic institutions and that's it. why he handed down the sentence now another note according to the Sentencing Guidelines that he should have he could have handed down a sentence of up to eight years, but today it was only 40

months

or about three and a third years Harry Hay NBC News viewers thanks for Take a look to our YouTube channel, subscribe by clicking that button down here and click on any of the videos here to see the latest interviews, highlights and digital exclusives, thanks for watching.