Thursday's sentencing of Roger Stone, the longtime Trump ally who often took on a bigger-than-life personality, has now become a case that's bigger than Stone.

In the past week and a half, Stone's sentencing has become a forum for accusations of political interference by the Trump Justice Department, the final straw for at least one career prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. and the topic of many tweets from President Donald Trump.

Speculation around a presidential pardon has also gained steam, amid other pardons Trump handed down this week.

What Stone's sentence ultimately ends up being is in U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson's hands. During a scheduling conference on Tuesday, she was unwilling to delay sentencing after Stone's defense team filed a second motion for a new trial under seal, noting it "had already been put off once."

"I think delaying the sentencing would not be the prudent thing to do," she said on the phone conference. None of the parties were in the room.

Not mentioned at the conference were the myriad other topics surrounding the sentencing. Stone's case has served as a conduit for questions about the Justice Department's handling of politically sensitive criminal cases under Attorney General William Barr, including that of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

In the Stone case, the original line prosecutors who obtained the guilty verdict all withdrew from the case after Main Justice announced it would step in and recommend a lighter sentence than the seven to nine years they requested in their original sentencing memo. One prosecutor, Jonathan Kravis, resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney altogether.

The new DOJ sentencing recommendation in Stone's case says he should be incarcerated for an unspecified amount of time but less than the seven to nine years. Stone's attorneys have said their client does not require incarceration as a part of his sentence.

Stone's is represented by a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based team of attorneys, including Bruce Rogow and Robert Buschel.

The decision to suggest a lower sentence echoed a move made weeks earlier in the Flynn sentencing, in which prosecutors asked he be sentenced to prison, more than they had asked for one year earlier. In a later filing, they said probation also would be acceptable.

Stone's case itself was a whirlwind from the start: It began with a gag order, then Stone violating the gag order, Jackson repeatedly ruling against Stone legal team ahead of the trial, and Stone again violating the gag order heading into trial.

After the jury returned a guilty verdict, attention shifted to DOJ. Once Trump weighed in on Twitter to say the government's recommended sentence was too harsh, DOJ changed its sentencing recommendations, sparking fears of political interference. Attorney General William Barr, though, said the decision to change the sentencing recommendation was made before Trump took to Twitter.

Those recent allegations of political interference have dominated more talk of Stone's case than the facts of the charges themselves: Lying to the House Intelligence Committee as part of its Russia probe, impeding a congressional investigation and witness tampering.

The witness stand and exhibits during his November trial was a who's who of former top Trump campaign officials. Steve Bannon and former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates testified, and texts between Stone and Trump surrogate Erik Prince were inserted into the record alongside phone records for numbers associated with Trump.

Adding onto the sense of surreality was the testimony of Randy Credico, a radio host who Stone had initially told congressional investigators was his back channel to WikiLeaks. Credico spent much of his first day on the stand cracking jokes, earning him a reprimand from Jackson.

Stone's defense team was relatively quiet in the time between the jury returning its guilty verdict in November and last week's sentencing memos.

One of Stone's lawyers, Chandler Routman, left the case last month. Last week, Stone tapped Seth Ginsberg, who previously represented alleged mafia figures like John Gotti Jr. and an alleged member of the Luchese crime family.

Ginsberg took the lead in arguing for Stone's sentencing to be delayed during Tuesday's hearing, acknowledging that no case law exists that required Jackson to rule on the motion for a new trial before the sentencing, while adding it would be "appropriate" for her to do so anyway.

At the same time, outside groups have spoken in defense of the original line prosecutors on the Stone case and against Barr and his running of the Justice Department.

The National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys defended the prosecutors in a statement last week, saying they had done "nothing wrong or improper." And a letter from former DOJ officials calling on Barr to resign has gained more than 2,000 signatures.

Others are also coming to the defense of Jackson, who has been targeted by Trump on Twitter in recent days. District of Columbia Chief Judge Beryl Howell said Jackson's sentence will be based on a number of criteria, but "Public criticism or pressure is not a factor."

The Federal Judges Association also will hold an "emergency meeting" on the Stone case on Wednesday.

Regardless of what Stone's sentence is, the possibility of Trump issuing a pardon hangs over the case.

The president announced a slew of commutations and pardons on Tuesday, including a commutation for former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He told reporters at the time that he had not considered a pardon for Stone.

When asked if he thought Stone would serve any time in prison, Trump declined to weigh in. "You're going to see what happens," he said.

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