Fox News host Jesse Watters called for “a little perspective” as he panned critics of President Donald Trump’s commutation of longtime adviser Roger Stone’s federal prison sentence.
“Honestly, Stone’s no saint and he’s been in the gutter for decades, but he is not a criminal either,” Watters said on Monday’s “The Five.” “He is an old man who likes to talk a lot of trash and got caught up in a frame job.”
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“If a guy plants a gun on you and he is a police officer and you throw the gun in the river, you can’t be charged with obstruction,” the Fox News host continued. “It is a dirty investigation, and we know it was a baseless investigation. There was no collusion. It was a witch hunt and now the media’s mad because the witch hunt got exposed.”
Watters then cited the actions of Democratic former presidents to call for “a little perspective.”
“We really need to go forward with the Democrats getting caught, trying to frame people, and, you know, Chelsea Manning, he got commuted by Barack Obama,” he said. “He conspired with WikiLeaks. Roger Stone didn’t conspire with WikiLeaks, and he is now in trouble.” (RELATED: Lindsey Graham: Trump Commutation Of Roger Stone Sentence ‘Would Be Justified’)
“I mean, it seems backwards,” Watters continued. “Bill Clinton, didn’t he pardon his brother or his business partner? But this is the craziest thing? He pardoned the bigger tax cheat in U.S. history because his wife gave $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. Come on! A little perspective here.”
After signaling for some time that he might take action, Trump commuted Stone’s 40-month prison sentence Friday evening. The former Republican operative was convicted in federal court last year of obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering related to former special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and was set to begin the sentence this week.
Critics of the president’s decision included Democrats, National Review editors, Mueller himself, and Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who accused the president of engaging in “historic corruption.”