Trump friend and political adviser Roger Stone to report to federal prison on 30 June

Democrats say president abused his power in pushing for lesser sentence for his old pal

Roger Stone, the longtime Donald Trump friend and political adviser, has a prison date.

Mr Stone will be designated inmate #19579-104 when he reports to a federal prison on 30 June, according to the Bureau of Prisons, which does not announce which penitentiary in which an inmate will be housed until they are inside.

Stone, who worked directly for the Trump campaign in 2015 and then as an unofficial adviser, was convicted in November for lying to Congress, obstructing an official proceeding and witness tampering.

Stone was facing seven charges and was found guilty on each one. Those were rooted in actions he took surrounding former Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia election meddling probe.

While working for and then advising Mr Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Mr Stone began trying to communicate with WikiLeaks about emails the organisation had obtained from a hacker who broke into Democratic servers.

"This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them," Trump tweeted in February, referring to the Justice Department preparing to recommend a nine-year sentence for Stone. "Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!"

Mr Trump spoke to Attorney General William Barr about the department's intention to seek a nine-year sentence. Mr Barr then signalled DOJ would indeed seek fewer years behind bars for Mr Trump's longtime friend; he ultimately was sentenced to 40 months in prison by a federal judge.

"[Trump] did not talk to Attorney General Barr about this before the sentence. In fact, the attorney general and the DOJ made very clear that they made this decision before any tweet went out," Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said in February, defending his boss's intervention. "They made this decision on their own."

"Look, he's the chief law enforcement officer. He has the right to do it."

But Democratic lawmakers have warned the president is overturning years of precedent for chiefs executive to stay out of DOJ business.