stated that had she not been there, they would have returned the same verdict but faster, insisting that the jury forewoman was impartial and focused on process. Stone publicly lobbied for clemency, stressing his loyalty to the president, saying: "He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn't." Within Trump's circle, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, Trump aide Larry Kudlow, and Republican congressman Matt Gaetz urged Trump to grant clemency to Stone, as did Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Carlson reportedly visited the white house and met with Jared Kushner to demand clemency for Stone. Other Trump advisors, including chief of staff Mark Meadows, son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and White House Counsel Pat A. Cipollone were concerned about granting clemency to Stone, viewing a grant of clemency as a political liability for Trump. On July 10, 2020, Trump commuted Stone's sentence by entirely removing his jail time a few days before he was to report to prison. Trump personally called Stone to inform him that his sentence was being commuted. In a lengthy statement containing an array of grievances, Trump attacked the prosecutors as "overzealous" and said, "Roger Stone has already suffered greatly. He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!" The Trump White House statement contained multiple statements and claims regarding Stone's prosecution and the Mueller investigation. The commutation was announced late on a Friday evening, a common time for the release of prospectively damaging news. Stone's commutation followed a number of occasions in which Trump granted executive clemency to his supporters or political allies, or following personal appeals or campaigns in conservative media, as in the cases of Rod Blagojevich, Michael Milken, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D'Souza, and Clint Lorance, as well as Bernard Kerik. Trump's grant of clemency to Stone, however, marked "the first figure directly connected to the president's campaign to benefit from his clemency power." On July 15, 2020, counsel for two constitutional law professors sought leave of Judge Jackson to file an amicus brief addressing whether the commutation "may not be constitutionally valid". Judge Jackson denied their motion on July 30, saying that the matter was no longer in her court, so she lacked jurisdiction. In rare public comments, prosecutor Robert Mueller forcefully rebutted Trump's claims in an op-ed in The