Updated at 10:35 p.m.

The U.S. Justice Department faced mounting questions Wednesday over why senior leaders intervened to reduce the recommended sentence for President Donald Trump's longtime friend Roger Stone, a move that prompted four career prosecutors to abruptly withdraw from the case.

Legal scholars and lawyers widely condemned the extraordinary decision undercutting career prosecutors, as some joined Democratic lawmakers in calling for an investigation by the Justice Department's internal watchdog. In a letter to the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York on Tuesday said the "situation has all the indicia of improper interference in a criminal prosecution."

A group representing career government lawyers, the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, plans to hold a board meeting Wednesday to discuss the Justice Department's move, said Larry Leiser, the organization's president.

A spokesperson for the DOJ's inspector general declined to comment Wednesday.

Late Wednesday, the New York City bar urged the Justice Department inspector general and Congress to launch "immediate investigations" into the Stone sentencing.

"Recent actions by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, a component of the United States Department of Justice, raise serious questions about whether the Department of Justice is making prosecutorial decisions based not on neutral principles but in order to protect President Trump's supporters and friends," New York bar leaders said in a letter. "In our criminal justice system, a single standard must apply to all who are accused or convicted of violating the law—unequal treatment based on political influence is to be deplored in all cases but is especially dangerous if it emanates from the presidency."

Three of the prosecutors who handled Stone's trial—Adam Jed, Aaron S.J. Zelinsky and Michael Marando—dropped off the case, and another, Jonathan Kravis, a former clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer, resigned from the Justice Department after senior leaders stepped in to pull their original sentencing recommendation. The career prosecutors suggested that Stone should receive a prison term of between seven and nine years for obstructing into Russian interference in the 2016 election, along with lying to agents and threatening a witness.

On Tuesday, the Justice Department retracted that recommendation to instead suggest an unspecified prison term for Stone. The government said in the new memo that a prison sentence between 37 and 46 months would be "more in line with typical sentences imposed in obstruction cases."

Trump had criticized the initial sentencing recommendation as overly harsh in a tweet early Tuesday, a move that invited speculation that the Justice Department had bowed to political pressure. Trump commended U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday for intervening to lower the sentencing recommendation for Stone, who was accused of obstructing the congressional investigation to protect the president.

Barr is set to testify on March 31 at the House Judiciary Committee. The panel said it wants to talk with Barr about, among other things: "The decision to overrule your career prosecutors and significantly reduce the recommended sentence for Roger Stone, who has been convicted for lying under oath, at the apparent request of the President—a decision that led to all four prosecutors handling the case to withdraw from the proceedings in protest."

A Justice Department spokesperson, Kerri Kupec, said department leaders had not discussed Stone's case with Trump or anyone else at the White House. A senior DOJ official said department leaders were surprised by the original sentencing recommendation and had expected it to resemble what was filed Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Trump, asked about whether he would pardon Stone, told reporters: "I don't want to say that yet." Stone's sentencing is still scheduled for Feb. 20.

Lawyers said they were struck by the development in Stone's case and the withdrawals of career prosecutors.

"Former DOJ career prosecutors and former political officials at DOJ, I have to imagine, are just struck by this as profoundly unprecedented and a very serious threat to the independence of career prosecutors and the criminal justice system from political interference," said Morrison & Foerster partner Charles Duross, a former federal prosecutor who now heads the firm's white-collar defense practice.

Duross said the Justice Department's inspector general "will have to be involved," adding that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia, who presided over Stone's trial last year, could question the Justice Department about the dueling sentencing recommendations.

"I can't think of a circumstance in which four prosecutors withdrew from a case on the eve of sentencing," he said. "She certainly may want to understand how the department reached the position they've now taken."

Michael Bromwich. Michael Bromwich. Oct. 18, 2018. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general, tweeted a "memo to all career DOJ employees" Tuesday night: "This is not what you signed up for. The four prosecutors who bailed on the Stone case have shown the way. Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity."

The Justice Department's inspector general's office does account for calls to open investigations from members of Congress, organizations and the public. Investigations regularly include the review of documents and witness interviews, in some cases, for any evidence of bias and improper considerations. In 2008, the inspector general's office investigated allegations of politicized hiring in the Justice Department honors program, a highly competitive entryway for young lawyers.

The Justice Department can expect a flood of records requests over the circumstances that led to the retraction of the Stone sentencing memo. The transparency advocate Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Tuesday filed a records request seeking any communication about the Justice Department's retraction of the original sentencing memo.

"The requested records will shed light on the process DOJ used to arrive at a sentencing recommendation and the extent to which that recommendation was influenced by the President and DOJ officials seeking to accommodate the president," the group's senior counsel, Nikhel Sus, wrote.

Sus described the circumstances as "unprecedented interference by senior DOJ officials in the prosecution" and said the situation "raises serious questions about the integrity of DOJ's processes and the extent to which those processes have been improperly influenced by political considerations."