Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Saturday penned an OpEd in the Washington Post, slamming President Donald Trump's decision to commute Roger Stone's sentence. According to Mueller, even though Stone's sentence has been commuted, he "remains a convicted felon, and rightly so."
Mueller has repeatedly said his report speaks for itself, calling it his "testimony." It's why he refused to comment any further, until this opinion piece. Even during his testimony in front of Congress, Mueller remained rather tight-lipped to avoid straying away from the report's conclusions.
"The work of the special counsel’s office — its report, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions — should speak for itself. But I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office," Mueller wrote. "The Russia investigation was of paramount importance. Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so."
According to Mueller, there was a reason that the special counsel's probe was focused on Stone.
"Stone became a central figure in our investigation for two key reasons: He communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be Russian intelligence officers, and he claimed advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ release of emails stolen by those Russian intelligence officers," he said.
The special counsel defended the work of his office, saying Stone was charged and convicted based on "facts" and "the rule of law."
"We made every decision in Stone’s case, as in all our cases, based solely on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law," he wrote. "The women and men who conducted these investigations and prosecutions acted with the highest integrity. Claims to the contrary are false."
Stone, a political operative and former aide to President Trump, was sentenced to 40 months in prison, in part, for lying to Congress. He lied to the House Intelligence Committee about his attempt to obtain WikiLeaks' emails from Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.