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The White House
PHOTO: DEA / M. BORCHI / Getty Images
- Federal prosecutors in Washington say they found evidence of a bribery scheme in which political contributions were exchanged for presidential pardons.
- In redacted court documents, US District Judge Beryl Howell described what she called a “bribery for forgiveness” investigation.
- The US Department of Justice is currently investigating the possible crime of funneling money to the White House.
The US Department of Justice is investigating a possible crime related to funneling money to the White House in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court documents released in federal court.
US District Judge Beryl Howell issued a highly worded order Tuesday outlining what she called a “bribery for forgiveness” investigation.
About half of the 18-page document was crossed out, and the publicly available version provided few details of the alleged plan and did not name any of the people potentially involved.
He said federal prosecutors in Washington said they had obtained evidence of a bribery scheme in which someone “would offer a substantial political contribution in exchange for a presidential pardon or a suspended sentence.”
The order said prosecutors were also investigating a “secret lobbying scheme” in which two unidentified individuals “acted as lobbyists for senior White House officials, without complying with the Lobbying Disclosure Act’s registration requirement. .
A Justice Department official said no government official is or was the target of the investigation.
The Justice Department had to ask Howell for permission to view certain emails between an attorney and clients, who were not identified.
Howell granted the request in August, saying the attorney-client privilege did not apply in that case.
First in a series of pardons
Prosecutors had said they planned to “confront” three unidentified individuals with the communications and terminate their investigation.
According to Howell’s order, government investigators said they had seized “more than fifty digital media devices, including iPhones, iPads, laptops, USB sticks, computers and external hard drives.”
Presidents enjoy broad freedom under the United States Constitution to pardon people convicted of federal crimes.
President Donald Trump last week pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
That was the first in what is expected to be a series of pardons in Trump’s final weeks in the White House.
Under Howell’s order, the Justice Department had recently told him that it wanted to prevent the investigation from being made public because it detailed “individuals and conduct” that had not yet been charged.
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