Trump's accomplice sentenced to 3 years and 4 months in prison

He was charged with fraud by Congress, witness manipulation and obstruction of justice, charges stemming from the investigation into Russia's intervention in the 2016 elections.

But Judge Amy Berman Jackson has said that Mr. Stone will not immediately begin suffering the sentence until she makes a decision whether he deserves a new court process, as his defence lawyers have requested.

Prosecutors had recommended that Mr. Stone be sentenced to seven to nine years of freedom. But Prosecutor General William Barr and other senior justice department officials rejected the prosecution's request and recommended a easier prison sentence. After Mr. Barr's intervention, all four prosecutors left the case.

Last week President Trump welcomed Mr. Barr's decision to take over the situation in Stone's case, as he put it.

Both President and Mr. Barr have denied that the intervention in the Stone case was made at the request of Mr. Trump. Mr. Barr is expected to appear next month in front of the House of Representatives Jury Commission.

After these developments, more than 2,000 former justice department officials called on Mr. Barr to resign, stressing that handling the Stone case, in turn, was a “open-ended emphasis” of the judicial system's independence.