Hi, and welcome back to Trump Watch! Roger Stone has been sentenced, but odds are Trump won't stop tweeting. Follow along the fun on Twitter at @jacq_thomsen, and email me your thoughts and feelings at [email protected] (but please, only the positive ones).

Trump's Buddy Is Going to Prison. Now What?

All eyes are on Donald Trump's pen (and Twitter account) in the hours after Roger Stone's sentencing, amid fueled speculation on whether the president will pardon his longtime pal for lying on his behalf as part of the Russia probe.

Stone has been vying for a pardon since the final days of his trial in November. Apparently sensing that things weren't going well, InfoWars host Alex Jones said on his livestreamed show one day before the verdict came in that Stone asked him to put out the word for a pardon.

Fox News surrogates similarly urged Trump to take action after Stone was found guilty of lying to Congress, impeding a congressional investigation and witness tampering.

Those closer to Trump in the White House have reportedly urged the president to avoid pardoning Stone. But the wave of clemency actions for white collar criminals earlier this week, including former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, has everyone waiting to see if Stone is next.

The attempts to solicit a pardon may have hurt Stone in terms of his sentencing. His violations of the gag order, including his messages to Jones, were found to merit upping the duration of Stone's sentence.

During the sentencing Thursday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson clearly tied Stone's actions to the president. "He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president," the judge said.

And she took aim at Trump during her remarks ahead of handing down Stone's sentence, albeit she didn't name the president, the way he has named her in his tweets.

"The system, for good reasons, demands the responsibility falls to" a neutral party, Jackson said of sentencing. "Not someone who has a longstanding friendship with the defendant, not someone whose political career was helped by the defendant. And certainly not someone" involved in the underlying facts of the case.

"The court cannot be influenced by those comments. They were entirely inappropriate," she added.

After Stone's sentencing, Trump said he wanted to see the case "play out to the fullest," saying he thought there was a chance at "exoneration" because of a "tainted" juror.

That may refer to efforts by Stone and his team to get a new trial. They have filed two sealed motions for new trials; one was rejected last week by Jackson, who said the grounds presented to her—a juror working as an IRS attorney who was shown an article about Stone's case on their way to court—didn't merit a new trial.

Stone's lawyers then filed another sealed motion for a new trial, this time apparently over another juror in the case.

Conservative media reports, including one by Fox News, have highlighted that juror as being a former congressional candidate who has made negative social media posts about Trump.

A new court filing on the matter is due on Monday, and during a phone conference last Tuesday, Jackson left open the possibility that she could call a hearing.

Stone could appeal his conviction after that issue is resolved. Or he could turn his ire toward his own lawyers, particularly over the vetting of the juror that he thinks ruined the first trial.

Long story short: Stone may be sentenced, but he's not going away any time soon. As Jackson said Thursday, "I expect he will keep talking."

Amy Berman Jackson's Biggest Lines

Jackson delivered a lengthy and powerful speech before handing down Stone's sentence on Thursday (which she opened with the line, "Unsurprisingly, I have a lot to say.") Here are a few lines that stood out:

On Stone's history of 'adolescent'-like tricks, as laid out by a supportive letter writer: "The problem is that nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn't funny. It wasn't a stunt and it wasn't a prank. He showed a flagrant disregard for the institutions of government established by the Constitution, including Congress and this court. And I would venture to say that many adolescents know the difference."

On claims that Stone was being politically targeted: "He has not been prosecuted by his adversaries or anyone else's adversaries. He was not prosecuted by anyone to gain political advantage….[The case] arose because Roger Stone characteristically injected himself right smack in the center of one of the most significant issues of the day."

On Stone's motivation to lie: "Stone knew that some would view it as incriminating for both him and the campaign if he asserted his right to not testify and said nothing. So he lied instead."

On Stone's repeated violation of court orders: "This is intolerable to the administration of justice and the courts should not sit idly by, shrug its shoulders and just say it's 'Roger being Roger.'"

A Look Ahead

2/21: A federal judge will hold a hearing in American Oversight's FOIA lawsuit for Office and Management Budget records on the hold placed on Ukrainian military aid. The parties are currently gridlocked over the timeline for producing the documents, per a recent status report.

2/24: Roger Stone is set to make a court filing in his bid for a new trial, although it's likely to be under seal.

2/25: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing titled "Rule by District Judge: The Challenges of Universal Injunctions."

What We're Reading

>> At Roger Stone's Sentencing, an Apology From the Justice Department: "When U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson entered her courtroom Thursday to sentence Roger Stone, she was greeted by a Justice Department prosecutor who had not said a word in the trial of President Donald Trump's longtime friend and confidant…. Crabb immediately apologized, telling Jackson he wanted 'to make clear to the court that this confusion was not made by the original trial team.' The team, he said, had been authorized to suggest a sentence of between seven and nine years in prison, adding that the recommendation was made in 'good faith.'" [National Law Journal]

>> Kramer Levin's Barry Berke Is Ready to Talk: "We won our court cases and got favorable rulings about Don McGahn and the grand jury documents related to the Mueller investigation. But the problem is that the process took too long. In the McGahn matter, it took six months to get the ruling, and there's no end in sight. The amount of time it would take to resolve issues didn't allow us to do the investigation in a timely way." [American Lawyer]

>> 'A Loss to the Pursuit of Justice': Praise for Roger Stone Prosecutor Who Resigned: "Known for a dry, mordant sense of humor, [Jonathan] Kravis earned a reputation as a seasoned prosecutor who combined trial instincts with the legal acumen of a Supreme Court clerk. In interviews, his former colleagues in the U.S. attorney's office described him as humble and not one for attention-grabbing martyrdom. His resignation, they said, could be interpreted as nothing other than a principled stand against politically motivated meddling in a criminal prosecution." [National Law Journal]

>> Who Is Jeff Jensen, Ex-Husch Blackwell Partner and Barr's Point Person on Mike Flynn Case?: "Jensen has become more of a household name in national legal circles in recent days, on the news that U.S. Attorney General William Barr picked him to review the prosecution of Michael Flynn in Washington, the one-time Trump national security adviser who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI amid the special counsel's Russia investigation….Jensen was confirmed in October 2017 as the top federal prosecutor in St. Louis, leaving behind, for now, his government investigations work at Husch Blackwell. That year, then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions picked Jensen to serve a two-year term on the U.S. attorney advisory committee, a group of prosecutors who offer policy, procedure and management guidance to Main Justice." [National Law Journal]

Thanks for reading. I will be back next week with more Trump Watch.