"The Department of Justice appears to be putting Donald Trump's friends above the law," reads the petition which was published on MoveOn.org, reaching more than 51,800 signatures by early Wednesday morning.
"The Justice Department's internal watchdog must investigate the corrupt about-face made at the seeming behest of Donald Trump and call out cronyism within its own ranks," it states.
"But given how compromised disgraced Attorney General William Barr is, we cannot trust the Justice Department to correct its course.
The House Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of Barr, must also investigate independently.".
Gaining tens of thousands of signatures overnight, the petition comes after four prosecutors who were working on the Stone case quit on Tuesday after the DOJ moved to reduce the proposed sentence recommendation it had just put forward on Monday.
However, ultimately, he said, "the government defers to the Court as to what specific sentence is appropriate under the facts and circumstances of this case.".
Newsweek has contacted MoveOn, the DOJ, DOJ's Office of the Inspector General, the House Judiciary Committee and a legal representative of Stone for comment. »
