8/23/2018

PARDONS/PAUL MANAFORT/ROBERT MUELLER/RUDY GIULIANI/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “While Paul Manafort was on trial for charges of serious financial crimes, President Donald Trump asked his legal team about the prospect of pardoning his former campaign chairman, according to Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. But Trump ultimately agreed with his legal team to delay the decision until after special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was over, Giuliani told The Washington Post on Thursday [8-23-18]. The acknowledgment that Trump seriously explored such a move contradicts White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ assertion on Wednesday that a pardon for Manafort was ‘not something that has been up for discussion’ — a statement that the president himself countered just hours later, according to Fox News…Giuliani’s comments and the Fox exchange reveal the degree to which Trump has considered inserting himself into Mueller’s criminal inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which netted its first guilty verdicts this week when a jury convicted Manafort on eight counts of bank and tax fraud.”

Kyle Cheney, “Giuliani’s comments add confusion about possible Manafort pardon,” Politico, August 23, 2018 9:27 pm