U.S. PROBED POTENTIAL ‘BRIBERY-FOR-PARDON’ SCHEME
Court records show secret lobbying of White House officials
The Justice Department in August investigated a potential “bribery-for-pardon” scheme in which a large political contribution would be offered in exchange for a presidential pardon by the Trump White House, according to court records unsealed Tuesday.
The documents show that U.S. prosecutors were scrutinizing whether two individuals approached senior Trump White House officials as unregistered lobbyists, and a related scheme in which cash would be funneled through intermediaries for a pardon or reprieve of a sentence for a defendant apparently in U.S. Bureau of Prisons custody at some point. The status of the investigation is unclear.
The slender record is heavily redacted and does not identify the investigation’s targets or whether anyone has been or will be charged. It also does not indicate what senior Trump White House officials did after allegedly being approached.
A Justice Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said, “No government official was or is currently a subject or target of the investigation disclosed in this filing.”
President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday night: “Pardon investigation is
Fake News!”
The existence of the investigation, first reported by CNN, was revealed in a court order by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of Washington, who released an Aug. 28 opinion describing the government’s theory. Prosecutors had sought to keep it private because they said it identifies people not charged by a grand jury.
The opinion granted prosecutors’ request to access search warrant evidence, including confidential emails sent among at least three individuals and their agents that could have been protected by attorneyclient privilege.
A government review of the evidence identified emails “indicat[ing] additional criminal activity” after scouring more than 50 digital media devices, including iPhones, iPads, laptops, thumb drives, and computer and external hard drives, Howell wrote.
The ruling offers glimpses of the underlying investigation, stating at one point, for example, that the government alleged at least one person “requested [redacted]’s assistance, ‘ as a personal favor,’ to use his political connections [redacted].”
It continues, “This political strategy to obtain a presidential pardon was “parallel” to and distinct from [redacted]’s role as an attorney-advocate for [redacted].”
In a footnote, Howell’s opinion added, emails submitted by the government as exhibits “do not show any direct payment to [redacted] by [redacted] or [redacted] and instead indicate that [redacted] expected [redacted] to assist in obtaining clemency for [redacted] due to [redacted]’s past substantial campaign contributions [redacted] and [redacted]’s anticipated future contributions.”
The language of the opinion suggests that the potential pardon-scheme was not the original subject of the warrants, and it is not clear if any targets subsequently challenged any grand jury proceedings.
In her largely blackedout 18-page opinion, the judge granted the government’s request for investigators to access the emails, confront three individuals and take any further investigative steps.
The opinion was originally sealed. In an update to the court Nov. 25, the Justice Department asked to keep the ruling secret because it “identifies both individuals and conduct that have not been charged by the grand jury.”
Howell found the response insufficient, directing the government to explain line-by-line why a redacted version could not be released that did not name uncharged individuals, prompting the government to submit the now-public document on Monday, she wrote.
Pardons are common at the end of a president’s tenure and are occasionally politically fraught affairs as some convicted felons look to leverage connections inside the White House to secure clemency.