US President Donald Trump confirmed in a Tweet on Friday that he was entitled to interfere in court cases, but stressed that he had decided not to do so yet.
Washington is seeing a lot of controversy after the Justice Department reduced the proposed punishment for Roger Stone, a political adviser close to Trump. And this decision was taken of special importance because it followed the tweet of the American President, in which he considered "a situation that is unfair" and "a judicial error."
On Thursday, US Attorney General Bill Barr confirmed that the president's comments had no impact on the department's decision, but he took the opportunity to call on Trump to avoid the kind of tweets that make his work "impossible".
"The president has never asked me to interfere in any way in a criminal case," he added.
In a tweet on his Twitter account, Trump commented on this statement by saying, "This does not mean that I do not have as president, a legal right to do so. I have the right, but I chose not to do so yet."
Roger Stone, who worked as a Trump adviser before and during his campaign, was convicted in November of lying to Congress and bribing witnesses as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Initially, the four prosecutors in charge of the file demanded a prison sentence of between seven and nine years, but the ministry opposed this and demanded that a "much lower" sentence be imposed on the pretext of "interests of justice".
A federal judge is due to announce the sentence on February 20.