Possible pardon hangs over Manafort’s Va. trial

WASHINGTON — When Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, goes on trial Wednesday in Virginia on charges of money laundering, tax fraud and other crimes, he may have reason to hope he can avoid prison if he is convicted.

Last month, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, suggested Trump may pardon Manafort, a potential get-outof-jail card that Trump already has given to several high-profile supporters.

Giuliani’s framing of terms for pardoning Manafort sparked political and legal controversy. Critics said Manafort could see Giuliani’s comments as a signal to continue to resist cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller, who brought the charges.

Mueller’s probe has led to criminal charges against 32 people, including 25 Russians, as part of his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, whether Trump or anyone else committed obstruction of justice, or other crimes.

Manafort is the first defendant from that probe to go on trial, first in Alexandria, Va., and then in Washington. The dozen charges center on his work as a highly paid adviser to the Russian-backed government in Ukraine, but the conspiracy continued through the Trump campaign, prosecutors allege.

Giuliani first raised the prospect of a presidential pardon the day U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is hearing the Washington case, revoked Manafort’s $10 million bail for what prosecutors said was witness tampering, and ordered him to jail until his trial.

“When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons,” Giuliani told the New York Daily News on June 15.

Giuliani elaborated on network TV shows June 17, saying Trump’s criteria for issuing a pardon would be whether a defendant had been “treated unfairly.” Two days earlier, Trump had called Manafort’s jailing “very unfair.”

Giuliani told CNN he was not suggesting a pardon might be forthcoming for Manafort, though he would not rule one out. “You are not going to get a pardon just because you are involved in this investigation,” Giuliani said. He added, “But you are certainly not excluded from it, if in fact the president and his advisers — not me — come to the conclusion that you have been treated unfairly.”

Despite that caveat, Giuliani’s comments sparked criticism from former federal prosecutors and legal scholars, with some suggesting the former New York mayor was complicit in obstructing justice.

“I think there’s no other way to look at that than an invitation or exhortation to Manafort to keep quiet and stay the course and hope for the get-out-of-jail card,” said Harry Litman, a former federal prosecutor in San Francisco. “He has no business trying to telegraph to Manafort anything about pardon prospects.”

Reached for comment, Giuliani said his remarks were not “in any way improper.”

Under the Constitution, the president is empowered to grant executive clemency for federal criminal offenses. Trump has granted seven clemencies: five pardons and two sentence commutations.