US President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of his long-time friend and former adviser Roger Stone just days before he was due to report to prison, the White House announced.
"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, 67, was scheduled to report by Tuesday to a federal prison in Jesup, Georgia, to begin serving a sentence of three years and four months for lying under oath to US lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
"The truth still exists, the truth still matters," the judge said when handing down the sentence in February.
The veteran Republican political operative's friendship with Trump dates back decades.
Stone was among several Trump associates charged with crimes in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that documented Russian interference in the 2016 race to boost Trump's candidacy.
The announcement came as the US reported a new record in the number of daily infections of coronavirus of 67,149, with eight states — Georgia, Ohio, Utah, Iowa, Wisconsin, Idaho, Montana and Alaska — also reporting new records. There's also been an increase in the number of hospitalisations in 26 states since last week. Texas, South Carolina and California also reported an increase in average daily deaths.
But the pandemic did not feature in a speech Trump gave in Florida, where intensive care units are at least 90 per cent full and daily infections on Friday were at the near record. At a round table with Venezuelan and Cuban political exiles the President sought to highlight his administration's efforts to curb the flow of drugs from Central America into the US to shore up support from Latinos as part of his re-election effort.
Also on Friday, campaign officials said they were postponing a planned rally for the following evening in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, citing safety concerns associated with an incoming tropical storm.
Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, told reporters travelling with the President aboard Air Force One that a rally planned for Portsmouth, Florida on Saturday would be delayed by a week or two because of an incoming tropical storm.
Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign's communications director, said that the delay was due to "safety reasons because of tropical storm Fay" and that a new date would be announced soon.
It was not clear whether the New Hampshire rally was on track to fill up. Aides were adamant they would fill the venue. But people familiar with the registrations said the interest was significantly lower than for rallies that took place before the pandemic.
Even before the storm warning, the state's Republican governor, Chris Sununu, had said he would not be attending, citing safety concerns related to the coronavirus, and it wasn't apparent how many other Republican elected officials were planning to come.
The postponement came as a spate of new polls show that Americans are being increasingly cautious about the coronavirus, as cases across the country have surged.
According to a recent Ipsos survey, about 76 per cent of Americans said they were concerned about being infected by the virus, up from 69 per cent in June.
Trump's decision to commute Stone's sentence comes amid criticism of his handling of the crisis and marks his most assertive intervention to protect an associate in a criminal case and his latest use of executive clemency to benefit an ally.
In announcing its clemency decision for Stone, the White House again took aim at Mueller's investigation and the prosecutors who brought the case against Stone. The White House said Stone "is victim of the Russia hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump presidency."
"There was never any collusion between the Trump campaign, or the Trump administration, with Russia. Such collusion was never anything other than a fantasy of partisans unable to accept the result of the 2016 election," the White House said.
Congressional Democrats and other critics have accused Trump of undermining the rule of law by publicly complaining about criminal cases against associates including Stone, former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff condemned Trump's action, saying: "With this commutation, Trump makes clear that there are two systems of justice in America: one for his criminal friends, and one for everyone else."
A Washington jury in November 2019 convicted Stone on all seven criminal counts of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness.
Stone was convicted for lying to the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee about his attempts to contact WikiLeaks, the website that released damaging emails about Trump's 2016 Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton that US intelligence officials have concluded were stolen by Russian hackers.
A commutation does not erase a criminal conviction as a pardon does.
The US Constitution gives a president the "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment". Trump's use of this executive clemency often has benefited allies and well-connected political figures.
He pardoned hardline former Arizona county sheriff Joe Arpaio, former Republican White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza and convicted "junk bond king" Michael Milken. He also commuted the prison sentence of Democratic former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who had been a contestant on Trump's former reality TV show.
Stone has been a fixture in American partisan battles dating to the 1970s. Stone, a colourful figure known for his natty attire, has labelled himself an "agent provocateur" and famously has the face of former president Richard Nixon tattooed on his back.
Trump repeatedly lashed out on Twitter about Stone's case, accusing prosecutors of being corrupt, the juror forewoman of political bias and the judge of treating his friend unfairly.
Late on Friday, US time, the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia denied Stone's request for a delay in reporting to prison.
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