For more than a year, Donald Trump has dangled presidential pardons before former associates who might provide evidence against him. He teased such miscreants as Mike Flynn, his crooked national security adviser, and Michael Cohen, his bullying ex-lawyer. And today we know how blatantly he has been using that same enticement to lure his former campaign manager Paul Manafort to abandon a plea agreement with the special counsel.
While supposedly cooperating with Robert Mueller’s prosecution team, Manafort and his attorney were revealing to President Trump and his lawyers what questions the prosecutors were asking and how he had answered. In short, he acted as a spy for the White House.
Why would a man facing many years in prison accept such a grave risk during those months of conferring with the Trump lawyers unless he heard a powerful hint of a pardon?
View the complete November 28 article by Joe Conason on the Creators website here.