President Donald Trump’s lawyer suggested last year that President Trump should pardon two of his former aides, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and campaign chairman Paul Manafort, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
According to three people familiar with the discussions, John Dowd made the suggestion to Flynn and Manafort’s lawyers when special counsel Robert Mueller was building his cases against both of the former aides. The timing suggests Dowd could have offered pardons to influence Manafort and Flynn’s decision on how to plead.
Dowd reportedly had the conversation with Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, last summer. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials in December, a move that Dowd reportedly privately said he didn’t understand because he had told Kelner Trump was prepared to pardon Flynn.
Dowd reportedly spoke with Manafort’s lawyer Reginald Brown, who is no longer his attorney, before Manafort was charged with money laundering, conspiring against the U.S. and failure to register as a foreign agent, among other things. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and has said that he doesn’t want a pardon from Trump because he doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
Dowd, who resigned from Trump’s legal team last week, denied he had discussions with either of the former aides’ attorneys about pardons, he told the Times.
Trump has reportedly been curious about his pardoning power since last year, when he inquired about the extent of his ability to pardon during a meeting with White House lawyers. Since coming into office, Trump has pardoned two individuals. In August, Trump pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who supported his campaign, for a contempt of court conviction. This month pardoned a sailor who was charged with obstruction of justice and retaining national defense information.
In December, Trump told reporters that he wasn’t prepared to talk about pardoning Flynn “yet,” saying he’d like to wait and “see what happens” first.
Well, of course he did!
Wow, all they need now is a conviction, which requires all that discovery and evidence presented in court.
This really isn’t the place for this comment but here it is anyway.
Putin’s recent string of assassinations is clearly a reminder to some that the FSB knows how to shut you up permanently if you were to entertain any ideas about cooperating with any agency involved in the investigation of their American assets.
But if you were an American player in this game it’s basically a free shot at someone you may want silenced for other reasons. Because if Manefort; Cage; Page; ad naseum turn up dead, Vlad’s going to get the blame regardless of who did it.
Either way, I don’t expect the life expectancy of any of these guys to range much further beyond the current investigation. In fact it might be the only thing keeping them alive at this point.
My comments should not be misinterpreted as intending or promoting harm to anyone, but rather a realistic assessment that some bad actors will sleep more peacefully once these pieces are taken off the playing field.
Why ah do declayah, this is shocking news.
I gotta give Dowd more credit than I have to date. I’ve always thought he was the dumb one because of his bombastic actions and irascible temper and Cobb was the more even keeled strategic hand.
I now think Dowd actually sees Trump as he is: a crook who is in it like it’s nobody’s business. I think he has looked into the campaign’s contacts with Russia and knows the answers are not good when you look under the hood. With Cobb, I think his position is that all that Russia collusion stuff is very complicated and he’s not going to get too deeply involved and would rather lean on plausible deniability and let Mueller take others out if he has the goods. His focus will be on obstruction, which is a more traditional risk based on our history.