Roger Stone drops appeal of charges against him: 'Time for me to move on'

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Longtime GOP operative Roger Stone says "it is time for me to move on" and has dropped an appeal of seven federal felony convictions against him stemming from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion.

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Stone wrote in a statement posted on his website, StoneColdTruth.com, that the decision was in the best interest of his family.

“It is time for me to move on with my life with my family, friends, and supporters. I regret not going forward with the appeal to fully expose all that happened, with the hope that by doing so, I could help prevent it from happening to anyone else ever again; but I had to decide based on what is best for me and my family,” Stone wrote. “The political taint that exists in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, from the prosecutors to the judge to the jury pool, is so deep and abiding that the possibility of achieving a just result on the merits is as nonexistent as it was when this process played out the first time.”

Stone has vehemently denied wrongdoing, even after he was sentenced to more than three years in prison after being convicted in November 2019 on multiple counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress in a probe related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

He was not charged with any underlying crime of coordinating with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, though Mueller’s team investigated Stone over tweets claiming to have information about WikiLeaks document dumps prior to their release.

Just days before he was expected to report to prison, President Trump granted clemency to Stone, releasing him of 40 months in prison, along with 24 months of supervised release and a $20,000 fine.

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Attorneys for Stone filed the motion shortly before midnight on Monday.

Stone did not respond to Fox News' inquiry on whether or not a presidential pardon is in his future.

However, the dropped appeal comes hours after Trump announced to reporters on Air Force One that he would be pardoning someone "very very important" that is neither Michael Flynn nor Edward Snowden.