# Roger Stone: Why did Trump commute the sentence rather than pardon him?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-stone-why-did-trump-commute-the-sentence-rather-than-pardon-him/915266>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [July 14, 2020, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-stone-why-did-trump-commute-the-sentence-rather-than-pardon-him/915266 "2020-07-14T01:05:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-stone-why-did-trump-commute-the-sentence-rather-than-pardon-him/915266/6 "2020-07-14T05:53:23Z")

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There’s a Pit thread “tRump pardons Stone” in which I ask exactly the OP’s question at [Post #16](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-pardons-stone/914991/16).

> [@tRump pardons Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-pardons-stone/914991/16):
>
> Why do you suppose he commuted the sentence instead of outright pardoning him?

See there and the several replies after that for additional suggestions and speculations.

One popular thought is Trump (or Trump’s advisors) concerned how it would play with the voters, and might impinge his re-election chances. But after the election, it’s suggested that Trump will then full-pardon him.

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