Pardon activity revving up as term nears end
President Trump has discussed with advisers whether to grant preemptive pardons to his children, to his soninlaw 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.
And court documents unsealed Tuesday show the Justice Department has been investigating whether intermediaries for a federal convict offered White House officials a bribe in exchange for a potential pardon or commutation.
Trump has told others 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 Robert Mueller, the special counsel, for contacts the younger Trump had had with Russians offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, but he was never 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 potential 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 writeoffs on millions of dollars in consulting fees by the company, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka 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.
The documents in the bribery probe were heavily redacted, and it was unclear who may have been involved. Nothing directly tied President Trump to the scheme, and the documents said no one had been charged.
But the documents offered a few clues about what the White House may have known about the scheme. One passage appears to show that a lawyer for the convict had discussions with the White House Counsel’s Office about a pardon or commutation, but it was unclear whether the discussions were part of the scheme or a normal backandforth with the White House about a convict’s case.
Investigators suspected that the convict seeking the pardon was imprisoned as recently as this summer and that two people working on behalf of the convict may have undertaken a secret lobbying campaign by approaching White House officials, according to the documents.