Trump says Roger Stone 'has a very good chance of exoneration' after being sentenced to 40 months in prison

Reuters

U.S. President Trump departs Washington for travel to California from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland

• Amid speculation that the president would pardon his longtime ally Roger Stone after he was sentenced to 40 months in prison, Trump weighed in during a Las Vegas speech.
• "Roger has a very good chance of exoneration in my opinion," Trump said.
• Part of the reason Stone faced prison time in the first place was because of his willingness to stay mum about his dealings with Russians and Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign.
• This is the closest Trump has come to signalling he will pardon his former adviser.
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President Donald Trump gave a boost to Roger Stone's hopes for a pardon Thursday in remarks delivered in Las Vegas.

Stone - who was sentenced to serve 40 months in federal prison Thursday for obstruction of justice, false statements and witness tampering - is a longtime ally and former adviser of the president during his early political forays.

While delivering a comencement address at a graduation ceremony for former prisoners in Las Vegas, Trump went on a tangent to weigh in on the Stone case.

"I want to see it play out to its fullest because Roger has a very good chance of exoneration, in my opinion," the president said. "I've known - and you people probably understand it better than anybody in the room - I've known Roger Stone and his wife ... for a long time, and Roger is definitely a character.

"Everybody sort of knows Roger, everybody knows him," Trump continued. "And most people like him. Some people probably don't. But I do, and I always have. He's a smart guy. He's a little different, but those are sometimes the most interesting. But he's a good person."

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