Donald Trump's longtime ally Roger Stone has been sentenced to three years and four months in prison for impeding a congressional investigation.
Stone, a veteran Republican operative and one of Donald Trump's oldest confidants, was convicted in November of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to cheat in the 2016 election.
"The truth still exists," said US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson as she handed down the sentence.
"The truth, still matters. Roger Stone's insistence that it doesn't, his belligerence, his pride in his own lies are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy," she added.
The judge said that Roger Stone had engaged in intolerable "threatening and intimidating conduct" toward her.
Judge Berman Jackson said Stone "knew exactly what he was doing" when he posted an image on social media last yearthat positioned a gun's cross-hairs over her head.
"The defendant engaged in threatening and intimidating conduct toward the court," Jackson said.
Stone was not immediately sent to prison as Judge Jackson said implementation of the sentence would be delayed while she considered his request for a new trial.
Stone is the sixth aide of Trump - who was impeached last year for abusing his power but acquitted by the Senate - to be convicted of charges arising from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian election interference.
Stone, who still has a sealed pending motion requesting a new trial, declined to speak at his sentencing hearing.
After leaving the court room, Stone told reporters, "I have nothing to say."
The sentence handed down fell well short of the seven to nine years that were initially recommended by the original prosecutors in the case before they were overruled by the Justice Department after President Trump complained publicly.
Those prosecutors quit the case. The judge said such a sentence was "unnecessary" for Stone, who has no prior criminal record.
Defense attorney Seth Ginsberg said Stone's career as a self-described "dirty trickster" overshadowed other aspects of a spiritual man who has served as a mentor, loves animals and is devoted to his family.
Stone was convicted of lying to the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee about his attempts to contact WikiLeaks, the website that released damaging emails about Trump's 2016 Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton that US intelligence officials have concluded were stolen by Russian hackers.
The judge noted that Stone was not charged with or convicted of having any role in conspiring with Russia. But the judge said Stone's effort to obstruct a congressional investigation into Russian election meddling "was deliberate, planned - not one isolated incident."
The investigators were not some "secret anti-Trump cabal," the judge said, but members of Congress from both parties at the time when the committee was controlled by the president's fellow Republicans.
President Trump said he believes Stone has a "very good chance" of being cleared following his sentencing to more than three years in prison.
He said: "Roger has a very good chance of exoneration in my opinion."
Mr Trump said he believed the jury in the Stone case was "tainted" but indicated he would not issue a pardon right away.
"I'm going to let this process play out," he said.
"At some point I'll make a determination.... We're waiting."
"Mr Stone is, in fact, not simply that public persona, but a human being," he said.
Stone's career as a Republican operative has stretched from the Watergate scandal era of the early 1970s to Trump's campaign four years ago.
