By Josh Gerstein
POLITICO
August 18, 2020
Longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone has unexpectedly dropped the appeal of his seven federal felony convictions for seeking to thwart a House investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Stone’s lawyers submitted a notice to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit withdrawing the appeal Monday night, about a month after President Donald Trump spared Stone a 40-month prison term and a $20,000 fine by commuting his sentence.
The court submission came less than an hour before a midnight deadline Stone’s attorneys faced to file their first brief laying out their grounds for challenging Stone’s convictions and seeking a new trial.