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With so many other witnesses cooperating, including Michael Flynn-who has just as much legal exposure as Manafort-the question is begged. Yet, Manafort has refused through it all, through having his house in Virginia subject to a no knock warrant last Summer, to being in leg irons, to being subject to house arrest.
Late last year, his house arrest was finally removed but recently a judge reimposed it reasoning that seeing as Manafort is subject to a potential 305 years in prison he could be a real flight risk.
In December it was reported Michael Flynn, who probably could face just as much prison time took a plea deal with Mueller and got a favorable sentence.
“A REALLY, REALLY GOOD DEAL”:
“MIKE FLYNN’S GUILTY PLEA SUGGESTS HE’S TURNED ON TRUMP”
“Experts believe Flynn’s single charge of lying to the F.B.I. means he’s cooperating with Mueller.”
Yet Manafort has stubbornly refused to cooperate. Precedent doesn’t seem to suggest this is very smart: in Watergate it was those who insisted on remaining loyal to Nixon who got the worst deals-on the other hand, John Dean wasn’t in prison long at all-and it was far from a real prison.
So what gives? Manafort claims it’s because he’s done nothing wrong. A more plausible theory is that Trump promised him a pardon. Now we have empirical evidence to back that up as a new report shows that Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, offered Manafort and Flynn pardons.
“A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump’s pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.”
“The discussions came as the special counsel was building cases against both men, and they raise questions about whether the lawyer, John Dowd, who resigned last week, was offering pardons to influence their decisions about whether to plead guilty and cooperate in the investigation.”
You also wonder if John Dowd’s sudden resignation was related to this news-did he know this story would be breaking soon? For Dowd the puzzle was not that Manafort hasn’t cooperated but that Flynn has despite being offered a pardon from Herr Trump.
“Mr. Dowd’s conversation with Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, occurred sometime after Mr. Dowd took over last summer as the president’s personal lawyer, at a time when a grand jury was hearing evidence against Mr. Flynn on a range of potential crimes. Mr. Flynn, who served as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, agreed in late November to cooperate with the special counsel’s investigation. He pleaded guilty in December to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and received favorable sentencing terms.”
“Mr. Dowd has said privately that he did not know why Mr. Flynn had accepted a plea, according to one of the people. He said he had told Mr. Kelner that the president had long believed that the case against Mr. Flynn was flimsy and was prepared to pardon him, the person said.”
“Clearly Flynn and Manafort assessed their risk differently. And at this point, Flynn got just one charge of lying to the FBI while Manafort is facing 305 years in prison and is under house arrest so you can wonder if maybe Flynn’s assessment made some sense.”
“The pardon discussion with Mr. Manafort’s attorney, Reginald J. Brown, came before his client was indicted in October on charges of money laundering and other financial crimes. Mr. Manafort, the former chairman of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, has pleaded not guilty and has told others he is not interested in a pardon because he believes he has done nothing wrong and the government overstepped its authority. Mr. Brown is no longer his lawyer.”
“It is unclear whether Mr. Dowd discussed the pardons with Mr. Trump before bringing them up with the other lawyers.”
What we do know is Trump has discussed the subject of pardons publicly on Twitter-he also spoke on tv about paying their legal fees-and with his lawyers:
“During interviews with Mr. Mueller’s investigators in recent months, current and former administration officials have recounted conversations they had with the president about potential pardons for former aides under investigation by the special counsel, according to two people briefed on the interviews.”
“In one meeting with lawyers from the White House Counsel’s Office last year, Mr. Trump asked about the extent of his pardon power, according to a person briefed on the conversation. The lawyers explained that the president’s powers were broad, the person said. And in other meetings with senior advisers, the president raised the prospect of pardoning Mr. Flynn, according to two people present.”
There are some who claim that a so-called ‘President Trump’s’ power to pardon is almost limitless.
“Legal experts are divided about whether a pardon offer, even if given in exchange for continued loyalty, can be considered obstruction of justice. Presidents have constitutional authority to pardon people who face or were convicted of federal charges.”
“But even if a pardon were ultimately aimed at hindering an investigation, it might still pass legal muster, said Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and a professor at Harvard Law School.”
“There are few powers in the Constitution as absolute as the pardon power — it is exclusively the president’s and cannot be burdened by the courts or the legislature,” he said. “It would be very difficult to look at the president’s motives in issuing a pardon to make an obstruction case.”
This would give the President retroactive immunity in committing any crime. Originalists claim to ascertain the founders original intent: it’s tough to imagine the intent here was absolute immunity on the part of the chief executive.
Other legal experts disagree:
“But pardon power is not unlimited, said Samuel W. Buell, a professor of law at Duke University.”
“The framers did not create the power to pardon as a way for the president to protect himself and his associates” from being prosecuted for their own criminal behavior, he said.
Under Mr. Buell’s interpretation, Mr. Dowd’s efforts could be used against the president in an obstruction case if prosecutors want to demonstrate that it was part of larger conspiracy to impede the special counsel investigation.
“Mr. Dowd is said to believe that the president has nearly unlimited pardon authority, but he and others have repeatedly insisted that no pardon offers have been made.”
Sure, Dowd, believes it’s unlimited yet takes great pains to insist that neither Herr Trump nor the legal team ever spoke of the pardon power:
He denied on Wednesday that he discussed pardons with lawyers for the president’s former advisers.
“There were no discussions. Period,” Mr. Dowd said. “As far as I know, no discussions.”
“Contacted repeatedly over several weeks, the president’s lawyers representing him in the special counsel’s investigation maintained that they knew of no discussions of possible pardons.”
In July, amid reports that Mr. Trump was considering granting pardons to his associates under investigation, Mr. Dowd told BuzzFeed that “there is nothing going on on pardons, research — nothing.”
Of course, the question begs: if its Trump full and absolute legal right why wasn’t it researched? This shows Dowd is less confident about this than he claims to be and that he also knows it’d be bad politics if the public knew about such ‘research.’
Update:
And America won't rule out impeaching, convicting, removing, prosecuting, and imprisoning him if he does. https://t.co/WCY914YALh
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 29, 2018
Regarding the pardon power it’s like many of Trump’s other powers-like firing the FBI Director. While that’s a legitimate use of executive power the motive matters and his use of it to convince witnesses not to cooperate in an investigation against himself is clearly obstruction of justice.
Certainly Mueller took the possibility seriously.
UPDATE: So a lot of water under the bridge since I wrote this chapter at the end of March 2018. Here at the end of May 2019 we’ve seen the redacted Mueller Report and Mueller chronicled ‘President Trump’s dangling of pardons in painstaking detail.
Cohen has testified in great detail of Trump’s dangled pardons and has emails of Rudy Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello offering a pardon.
In the recently released transcripts from when Cohen testified before HSPCI in March he says he was open to a pardon until July of 2018.
As for Manafort he has indeed proved to be the G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate 2.0 and was sentenced in March for 7 and a half years.
In the Mueller Report we learn that Manafort told Rick Gates not to cooperate as the illegitimate ‘President’s’ lawyers will take care of us.
Manafort never did cooperate even for the brief time he pretended he was.
Beyond holding out for a pardon it’s clear the secrets he’s hiding are central to the Russia collusion scandal. It’s clear that he was very much involved in outreach to Wikileaks-he was campaign manager during the time of the leaks of the DNC emails and when Trump publicly commissioned Russia to commit a crime Russia, if you’re listening.