Posted on 03/28/2018 1:03:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump 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.
The talks suggest that Mr. Trump’s lawyers were concerned about what Mr. Flynn and Mr. Manafort might reveal were they to cut a deal with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in exchange for leniency. Mr. Mueller’s team could investigate the prospect that Mr. Dowd made pardon offers to thwart the inquiry, although legal experts are divided about whether such offers might constitute obstruction of justice.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well now that will put the Leftists shorts in a real twist!
Written by 5 people - it’s piled high and deep.
Help me. What is scandalous about the president’s lawyer talking to him about exercising one of his constitutional prerogatives?
Five idiots? That’s a record.
Not concerned about Manafort, he’s played fast and loose for a long time.
But General Flynn should and will unquestionably be pardoned if the charges are not dropped. And I believe Trump will personally make him and his family whole after he is in a position to do so without it distracting from MAGA and becoming a media sideshow.
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power.” – Malcolm X
Not true, not true, Fake News.
Agree about Manafort.
With Flynn, I’m nervous about his Turkish consulting. And, even if the whole Mueller interaction with him is flawed and deserves pardon, why was he reported to have been untruthful with Pence? That’s the proximate cause of his firing.
And, let me repeat, its different from his deserving to get out from under the stacked Mueller charges.
NYT leaking or pretending to lead privileged attorney-client communications. There is no low they won’t plow.
Five times zero is still ZERO.
This article is a typical yet unremarkable example of the ugly rot that has infested the New York Times and much or most of the other biased, partisan media.
If they can string together a largely false, or at-best-unproven, anti-Trump narrative out of a dog’s breakfast of innuendo and ‘what if’ speculation and unsourced allegations lacking in substance, chock full of questions raised rather than answers given, then that passes for “news” and they’ll run with it.
On the other hand, if there’s unimpeachable evidence of massive wrongdoing including patently illegal acts, corruption, mind-blowingly-audacious scandal, and more at the highest levels of the federal government, pointing directly at Obama and the Obamunists who surround him, including the IRS, the DOJ, FBI, and CIA, the DNC, Joe Biden and his family, the Clinton campaign and foundation, Bill and Hillary Clinton themselves, Russia and other enemies of the US, etc. then they will massively downplay it, claim that it’s just partisan jockeying without substance, and otherwise do their best to cover it up.
No big deal. Presidents have issued pardons for many, many years. Look at all the criminals Odumbo pardoned. Too bad W. Bush lacked the cojones to pardon Scooter Libby.
Looks like those lawyers committed a thought crime according to the lights of the NYT. It must have taken five people holding on to each other to get the story of pure evil onto a page.
Makes you wonder who was/is doing the leaking and was Dowd part of the leaking?
“...why was he reported to have been untruthful with Pence? That’s the proximate cause of his firing.”
Why did they not keep that in-house? Did he really lie to Pence? Pence is great friends with Congressman who lie daily. Has Pence ever been lied to? All that leaking going on is on the same level as lying. Yet no one, except maybe lately, has been fired. They have all been protected by Jeff, who only expresses anger over it and no action.
Sounds like attorney-client privilege applies to everyone but Trump.
The New York Slimes and its parade of Partisan Media Shills tries yet another smear. Thanks SeekAndFind.
“according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.”
Leaked to the Slimes by the White house janitor, who heard it from the Whitehouse cook, who overheard the Whitehouse gardener saying.......
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