Robert Mueller Speaks Out on Roger Stone Case: ‘He Stays a Convicted Felon, and Rightly So’

Robert Mueller, the ragged special counsel who led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, on Saturday broke his silence about attacks on the legitimacy of his work by President Trump and other leading Republicans. He furthermore replied to Trump’s choice tiring Friday to shuttle the penal complex sentence of ragged Trump adviser Roger Stone, who used to be due to begin up serving his three year, four-month sentence on July 14.

“I in actuality feel compelled to reply both to tremendous claims that our investigation used to be illegitimate and our motives had been circulation, and to particular claims that Roger Stone used to be a victim of our situation of enterprise,” Mueller wrote in a Washington Post op-ed printed Saturday. “The Russia investigation used to be of paramount significance. Stone used to be prosecuted and convicted due to he committed federal crimes. He stays a convicted felon, and rightly so.”

Mueller defended the work of his two-year investigation, which he great resulted in concrete motion: “In keeping with our work, eight individuals pleaded responsible or had been convicted at trial, and extra than two dozen Russian individuals and entities, along with senior Russian intelligence officers, had been charged with federal crimes,” he said.

Additionally Read: Trump Commutes Roger Stone’s Prison Sentence

One of many individuals used to be Stone, who worked on the Trump campaign in 2015 and in an off-the-cuff skill in 2016. In accordance with Mueller, “He communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be Russian intelligence officers, and he claimed come files of WikiLeaks’ open of emails stolen by these Russian intelligence officers.”

But Stone ran afoul of the regulations when he lied again and again to Congress about his actions with WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. “The jury not straight away convicted Stone of obstruction of a congressional investigation, 5 counts of constructing incorrect statements to Congress and tampering with a search for,” Mueller said. “Because his sentence has been commuted, he’s no longer going to transfer to penal complex. But his conviction stands.”

Mueller concluded by defending the work of the Justice Department and the investigators on the case. “We made every choice in Stone’s case, as in all our cases, basically basically based fully fully on the info and the regulations and in accordance with the rule of thumb of regulations,” he said. “The ladies and males who performed these investigations and prosecutions acted with the top possible integrity. Claims to the opposite are incorrect.”