Roger Stone told Axios that he plans to write and speak for President Trump’s re-election now that Stone “won’t die in a squalid hellhole of corona-19 virus.”

Said Stone: “First, I’m going to write a book about this entire ordeal to, once and for all, put to bed the myth of Russian collusion.”

He added: “It’ll be a very tough fight. He’s got three obstacles: voter fraud… internet censorship, which I have just recently experienced myself; and, of course, the constant falsehoods being pushed by the corporate-owned mainstream media. Those all make it a difficult race. But he is a great campaigner. He’s a great communicator.”

Barbara McQuade: Why Trump commuted Stone’s sentence instead of pardoning him.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller writing in the Washington Post:

“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.”

“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.”

Politico: “Roger Stone is headed to prison next week unless Donald Trump intervenes. And a chorus of outside allies is pressing the president to do just that — over the wishes of White House and campaign aides who don’t like Stone and think Trump has nothing to gain by helping him.”

“Both camps expect Trump will at least split the difference by commuting Stone’s sentence… A commutation would keep Stone from behind bars without wiping his record clean.”

“The Justice Department supports longtime Trump friend Roger Stone going to prison on Tuesday, according to a new court filing,” CNN reports.

“President Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone is mounting a last-ditch bid to get a federal appeals court to put off the 40-month prison sentence he is facing after being convicted of trying to thwart a congressional investigation into alleged ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia,” Politico reports.

“A federal judge has ordered Roger Stone to report to prison July 14, granting him a two-week delay because of the coronavirus pandemic, but not the two months that President Trump’s confidant had requested with prosecutors’ assent,” the Washington Post reports.

David Hopkins: “The quadrennial celebration of the key strategists behind the winning candidate as unrivaled masters of the political arts usually reflects an assumption that the outcome proved them to be savvier or more ruthless than their counterparts in the losing camp. But most of the time, there are equally smart and tough people on both sides of a race. One competitor will inevitably be elected and the other defeated—it’s the nature of the business—but that doesn’t mean that the winners are always geniuses and the losers always incompetents.”

“Interestingly, the 2020 election may be the first in a while that has not generated substantial press coverage of the top professional staffers in the two major presidential campaigns.”

Politico: “The Justice Department won’t oppose a bid by Roger Stone, the longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, to delay an upcoming prison sentence until September, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday night, citing department-wide policies implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic.”

Longtime Trump friend and political adviser Roger Stone must report to prison by June 30, CNN reports.

“Stone is designated to be inmate #19579-104 after a federal judge sentenced him to 40 months in prison for lying to Congress and witness intimidation.”

President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been released from prison to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement because of concerns over the novel coronavirus, ABC News reports.

Roger Stone just filed notice that he’s appealing his conviction from last year with the D.C. Court of Appeals.

President Trump tweets: “Does anybody really believe that Roger Stone, a man whose house was raided early in the morning by 29 gun toting FBI Agents (with Fake News CNN closely in toe), was treated fairly.”

“I am praying for a pardon.”

— Roger Stone, quoted by NBC News.

“A federal judge on Thursday rejected Roger Stone’s demand for a new trial, ruling that the jury forewoman in Stone’s trial was not substantially biased against President Trump’s longtime political confidant,” the Washington Post reports.

Paul Manafort, is seeking early release from prison due to the threat the coronavirus poses to his health, Politico reports.

“Manafort lawyer Kevin Downing made the request to the federal Bureau of Prisons on Monday, asking that the 71-year-old lobbyist and political consultant be transferred to home confinement to serve the remainder of his seven-and-a-half year sentence for a series of convictions on charges of tax evasion, failing to report foreign bank accounts, witness tampering and engaging in unregistered lobbying for foreign interests.”

Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Trump, to 40 months in prison for lying to and obstructing Congress and witness tampering in the Russia investigation, the New York Times reports.

Handing down a 40-month sentence, Judge Jackson said Stone’s behavior inspired “dismay and disgust.”

She added: “The truth still exists. The truth still matters. Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn’t, his pride in his own lies are a threat to the very foundation of this democracy.”