Roger Stone, the longtime confidant of Donald Trump, has been sentenced to 40 months in prison by a federal judge in Washington who has been the target of repeated attacks by the president.
Mr Stone, 67, a veteran Republican political operative, was convicted last year of lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering to protect Mr Trump.
The sentence handed down by Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Thursday came following almost two weeks of controversy over the US justice department’s handling of the case that erupted after William Barr, Mr Trump’s attorney-general, reversed a recommendation by career prosecutors that Mr Stone serve up to nine years in jail.