TRUMP HAS DISCUSSED PARDONS FOR FAMILY
President has talked with Giuliani about granting him pardon
President Donald Trump has discussed with advisers whether to grant preemptive pardons to his children, to his son-in-law and to his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and talked with Giuliani about pardoning him as recently as last week, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Trump has told others that he is concerned that a Biden Justice Department might seek retribution against the president by targeting the oldest three of his five children — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — as well as Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, a White House senior adviser.
Donald Trump Jr. had been under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller for contacts he had had with Russians offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, but he was not charged. Kushner provided false information to federal authorities about his contacts with foreigners for his security clearance but was given one anyway by the president.
The nature of the president’s concern about any po
tential criminal exposure of Eric Trump or Ivanka Trump is unclear, although an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the Trump Organization has expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees by the company, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump.
Presidential pardons do not provide protection against state or local crimes.
Giuliani’s potential criminal exposure is also unclear, although he was under investigation as recently as this summer by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for his business dealings in Ukraine and his role in ousting the American ambassador there. The plot was at the heart of the impeachment of Trump.
The speculation about pardon activity at the White
House is churning furiously, underscoring how much the Trump administration has been dominated by investigations and criminal prosecutions of people in the president’s orbit. Trump himself was singled out by federal prosecutors as “Individual 1” in a court filing in the case that sent Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, to prison.
A spokeswoman for Trump did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Giuliani did not respond to a message seeking comment, but after a version of this article was published online, he attacked it on Twitter and said it was false.
Such a broad pardon preempting any charge or conviction is highly unusual but does have precedent. In the most famous example, President Gerald Ford pardoned
Richard Nixon for all of his actions as president. President George Washington pardoned plotters of the Whiskey Rebellion, shielding them from treason prosecutions. And President Jimmy Carter pardoned thousands of American men who illegally avoided the draft for the Vietnam War.
Trump has wielded his clemency powers liberally in cases that resonate with him personally or for people who have a direct line to him through friends or family.
A pardon for Giuliani is certain to prompt accusations that Trump has used his pardon power to obstruct investigations and insulate himself and his allies. Andrew Weissmann, a top prosecutor for Mueller, has said that Trump’s dangling of pardons for his allies impeded their work.
In July, the president commuted the sentence of his longtime adviser Roger Stone, who had refused to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigators and was eventually convicted of seven felonies. Last week, Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had backed out of his cooperation agreement with the special counsel’s office for “any and all possible offenses” beyond the charge he had faced of lying to federal investigators.