Conservative explains why Roger Stone doesn’t deserve a presidential pardon and ‘should face the necessary repercussions’ for the ‘criminal’ acts he was convicted of

On Thursday, February 20, Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced 67-year-old Roger Stone — a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, veteran GOP operative and self-described “dirty trickster” — to three years and four months in federal prison for felonies that included lying to Congress and witness tampering. But how much time Stone will actually spend behind bars remains to be seen: Trump, who believes that Stone was railroaded and hasn’t been shy about lambasting Jackson (an appointee of President Barack Obama), has the power to grant him a presidential pardon — an idea that conservative journalist and Washington Examiner columnist Kaylee McGhee is vehemently opposed to.

Many of the people who have been expressing their revulsion over the possibility of Trump pardoning Stone are Democrats — some centrist, some liberal or progressive. McGhee, however, is a right-wing opinion columnist for a right-wing publication. And this week in her column, McGhee offers a long list of reasons why she believes that pardoning Stone is a terrible idea.

“Roger Stone lied to Congress, threatened a witness to cover his tracks, and will now serve 40 months in prison,” McGhee explains. “President Trump has hinted he might pardon his longtime associate, but doing so would be a mistake.”

During his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to “drain the swamp” — that is, clean up Washington, D.C. But as McGhee sees is, Stone embodies what Stone calls “the swamp.”

“Stone represents the corruption Trump promised to root out of Washington, D.C.,” McGhee asserts. “He openly bragged about speaking with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to spread smears about Hillary Clinton, then lied about the Trump campaign’s knowledge of these encounters. Stone then tried to prevent a witness from accurately testifying.”

Moreover, the conservative opinion columnist writes, “Stone lied to Congress to protect Trump, according to Stone’s lawyers. Pardoning him now would make it seem like Trump is willing to give white-collar crime a free pass as long as it’s done in service to his administration. This is not a good look for a president recently accused of obstruction of justice and abuse of power by partisan Democrats.”

McGhee agrees with others on the right that “Democrats will disagree with Trump no matter what he does,” asserting  that there are “certainly questionable elements of Stone’s case that must be addressed.” She quickly adds, however, that “this is a reelection year, which means Trump must be prudent and keep his distance from unnecessary controversy.” And the bottom line, McGhee stresses, is that the things Stone was convicted of in 2019 are serious offenses.

Stone, McGhee writes, “is still a criminal, and he should face the necessary repercussions.”