Politics
- President Trump's former lead defense lawyer, John Dowd, reportedly raised the prospect Trump would pardon former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
- Flynn pleaded guilty in December, and Manafort has pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges against him as part of the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
- Manafort and Flynn were closely linked to Trump during the campaign and in the White House, respectively.
- Legal experts said if Dowd did broach the subject of pardons for both men, it may be improper, but likely would not constitute obstruction of justice.
John Dowd, the former lead defense attorney in charge of managing President Donald Trump's communications with the special counsel Robert Mueller, suggested the possibility of pardons for two of the most critical figures in the Russia investigation at the height of the inquiry, The New York Times reported.
According to The Times, Dowd spoke to lawyers representing former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort last year, as Mueller's investigation was closing in on both men.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December to one count of lying to federal investigators about his Russia contacts and is now believed to be cooperating with Mueller. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to several charges.
Dowd reportedly broached the subject of a possible pardon with Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, last summer. He spoke to Manafort's then-lawyer, Reginald J. Brown, shortly before Manafort was indicted last October. He has since been charged with dozens of other financial crimes, most of which relate to his pro-Russia lobbying work in Ukraine.
Dowd resigned from representing Trump last week.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Michael Flynn.
Both Flynn and Manafort were closely tied to Trump in the White House and during the campaign, respectively.
The president has long said both publicly and privately that he believes the case against his former national security adviser is thin, and that Flynn was unjustly targeted in what he characterizes as a politically-motivated "witch hunt."
Trump fired Flynn in February 2017. The White House initially said Flynn was fired because he misled Vice President Mike Pence about conversations he had with Sergei Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador to the US, during the presidential transition period in 2016. But one day after Flynn's guilty plea was announced in December, Trump tweeted that he had to fire Flynn because he "lied to the FBI."
Former FBI director James Comey testified last year that Trump asked him multiple times when he was FBI director to drop the bureau's investigation into Flynn. Legal experts said that if Trump knew Flynn had misled investigators when he asked Comey to let go of the investigation, as his December tweet appeared to indicate, it would significantly bolster the obstruction-of-justice case Mueller has been building against him since last year. Dowd later claimed responsibility for the tweet.
Meanwhile, Manafort's status as Trump's campaign chairman during a crucial time in the 2016 election is also likely of interest to investigators. He was spearheading the campaign during several key moments during the race.
Dowd, Trump defense lawyer Jay Sekulow, and White House counsel Ty Cobb all told The Times that there had been no discussions of possible pardons for Manafort and Flynn at any point during the investigation.
Dowd did not respond to an additional request for comment.
In response to reporters' questions about the Times report, White House press secretary pointed back to Cobb's statement, adding that "there is no discussion or consideration of this at that at this time."
Inappropriate, but not illegal?
Legal experts said that if such a discussion did occur, it would not be appropriate, but it may not rise to the level of obstruction of justice.
"The president's power to pardon is absolute and not subject to review even if he does it for political reasons," said Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor who spent 12 years at the Department of Justice.
"A president pardoning defendants if they don't plead guilty (and cooperate is the unspoken word here) would be a new use of the pardon power," he said.
Dowd's reported message to the defendants "puts us, yet again, in uncharted waters," he added. "Dangling a pardon if they keep their mouths shut would certainly be of interest to Mueller. Nobody can say it is criminal. Only a partisan hack would argue it's proper."
Andrew Wright, a former associate in the White House counsel's office under President Barack Obama, highlighted that Dowd, Cobb, and Sekulow have all denied that Dowd broached the possibility of pardons for Flynn or Manafort.
"I hope they're right," he said. "Floating the possibility of a pardon to a witness considering cooperation with a grand jury investigation would be bad if Dowd represented another non-presidential witness."
However, he added that Dowd represented Trump in his personal capacity, as opposed to Cobb, who represents the White House.
"Last time I checked, the pardon power is official, not personal," Wright said. "That kind of act could twist up not only the client, but also the lawyer, in a criminal obstruction probe."