The president continued Wednesday to avoid explicitly ruling out a pardon, telling reporters he had “not even given it a thought as of this moment.”
On the heels of President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort being sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Wednesday, Democrats strongly warned the president not to issue a pardon, with some telling Newsweek that such an act could be viewed as having an ulterior motive to influence those enveloped in the Russia probe.
The president continued to avoid explicitly ruling out a pardon after the latest sentencing, telling reporters he had « not even given it a thought as of this moment. » White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders offered a similarly vague answer earlier in the week, saying, « He’ll make a decision when he’s ready. » And in a New York Post interview in November, Trump said a potential pardon was not “off the table. Why would I take it off the table?”
“If the president were to pardon Manafort, it would cause Congress to erupt,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine told Newsweek shortly after Manafort’s sentencing.
Kaine pointed to the Republicans who were poised to side with Democrats in upcoming votes to end Trump’s national emergency declaration and ending U. S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen as signs of erosion for GOP lawmakers’ support of his presidential authority.
“More unilateral use of executive power and really questionable circumstances would, I think, really galvanize a reaction here in Congress,” he said. “We can’t affect his pardon power, but we would view it as a sign of a guilty conscience.”
Just minutes after his sentencing, a Manhattan grand jury indictment on Manafort for 16 additional charges involving residential mortgage fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records was unveiled.
