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The Times just dropped a story reporting that President Trump’s former lawyer John Dowd dangled the possibility of pardons before lawyers for Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort just as Mueller’s prosecutors were closing in on bringing charges against both men. Pressure to make a deal was growing. Pardons would be an enviable alternative option. The story notes that it is not at all clear there’s anything legally or constitutionally wrong with the President or his representatives offering pardons, even though the clear impact of such pardons would be to prevent those receiving the pardons from turning on the President. It’s like the President’s near-total ability to fire the FBI Director, actually even more than that power since the constitution explicitly gives the President an apparently unlimited authority to issue pardons. Could it constitute obstruction? That’s an open legal question. But the publication of this story now raises a related question. Why did Dowd resign? And did he have a choice?
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