Russia probe's Mueller: Stone not innocent victim

Former US special counsel Robert Mueller has made a rare public intervention to defend his indictment of former Trump adviser Roger Stone.

Stone was found guilty on charges linked to an investigation led by Mr Mueller that found Russia tried to boost the Trump 2016 election campaign.

In the Washington Post, Mr Mueller said Stone was rightly a convicted felon.

The White House said that Department of Justice prosecutors under Mr Mueller only charged Stone out of frustration after failing to prove the "fantasy" that the Trump campaign had colluded with the Kremlin.

Mr Mueller writes that he felt compelled to respond to claims that his investigation had been illegitimate, his motives improper, and Stone a victim.

Mr Mueller rarely makes public statements about the investigation, and the article is the first since he gave testimony in Congress in July 2019.

In a tweet on Saturday, Mr Trump said: "Roger Stone was targeted by an illegal Witch Hunt that never should have taken place.".

Earlier, the White House said in a statement that Stone was "a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency".

Mr Trump had been hinting about a reprieve for Stone for months, including on Thursday night in an interview with a Fox News host

Mr Stone himself told reporters that under the terms of the commutation he could now appeal against his sentence, and was confident that he could expose "an enormous amount of corruption" at his trial