– These are loyalty waivers – VG

– I think Paul Manafort is next in line, says Eirik Løkke in the Civita think tank.

He continues:

– Then we will probably see George Papadopoulos. And then there is the question of whether Steve Bannon will be pardoned. All of these his former advisers. But the big question is perhaps whether Donald Trump will test whether he can forgive himself.

This is how the American expert responds, the day after Donald Trump pardoned his former national security minister Michael Flynn – who admitted to having lied to the FBI – who he believes is the next in line for the president’s pardons.

We will return to the “big question”.

– No no no

For an outgoing president to pardon federal convicts is by no means unusual. It’s also not new that some presidents pardon people close to them.

Bill Clinton did it in his time with his own brother Roger, who had a drug conviction. George HW Bush did it with his former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.

For Trump, loyalty seems to be a keyword. Those who have been loyal are rewarded.

– It is in that light that one should see Flynn’s forgiveness. His lies to the FBI were also to protect Trump. We see the same when the president changed his sentence to his former adviser Roger Stone. These are loyalty waivers, says Løkke, who isn’t surprised at all.

– No no no. This is Trump’s summary. He is extremely concerned about loyalty. We saw it, for example, when he fired former FBI Director James Comey.

Comey refused to pledge his loyalty to Trump, but said his loyalty as head of the FBI was to the Constitution.

Believe in sensational pardons

Both Manafort and Papadopoulos ended up in jail as a result of letter investigator Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible cooperation between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign in 2016. The same happened with Flynn.

Trump has previously lured with possible pardons for those whom Mueller questioned. Something about what the letter specialist wrote in the part of his final report that dealt with Trump’s possible attempts to obstruct the investigation.

Others, who have voiced support for Trump, have also been pardoned by the president. Among them are former New York Police Chief Bernard Kerik and controversial former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Eirik Løkke believes that we will see more pardons in the future. Including the sensational battle.

“I think Trump has the potential to take presidential pardons very, very far,” he said.

– He likes to show power

Several of those who have been pardoned by Donald Trump have received good news for them after receiving help through unusual channels. Friends of Trump, personalities from Fox News and Hollywood celebrities, such as Kim Kardashian West among others.

Two weeks ago, CNN wrote that only eight of the 27 pardons the president had granted so far had passed through the regular channel, which is a separate pardons office in the Justice Ministry. Typically, they evaluate the people a president will forgive, before a final decision is made. Therefore, Donald Trump has largely chosen to do this for his own machine.

– It is not inconceivable that there will be more people close to Trump who will be pardoned, or that people in the circle around him will pressure the president to make people forgive. He likes to show that he has power, so I think we can see a series of pardons like this in the future. It costs Trump nothing, says Løkke.

One who has been speculated to fit such a scenario is the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Charles Kushner was convicted in 2005 of a financial crime.

– It is not entirely inconceivable that he could be pardoned, says Løkke, who adds that one must be aware in the future of whether there may be pardons for people with economic ties to Trump, or his family.

– So we quickly talk about corruption, says the American expert.

Anticipated pardon

Another person who has been speculated on is Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who is under federal investigation in connection with a campaign finance campaign.

For both him and Steve Bannon, suspected of embezzlement, there will be talk of a pre-pardon, since neither of them will be convicted of anything before Trump’s last day as president, on January 20 of next year.

Nor will it be the first time this has happened. When Richard Nixon was forced to resign after the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, the new president, Gerald Ford, pardoned Nixon for “all the crimes against the United States that he has committed or may have committed or of which he has been a part” .

Løkke doesn’t think it’s unlikely that Trump could do something similar.

– But it’s a question of how far it goes. It must probably be related to a specific case in that case, but I think it can be very strange to use that term.

Forgive yourself?

For Eirik Løkke and many others, the big question is whether Donald Trump will try to forgive himself.

Whether this is a possibility is in many ways an open question. On Twitter, of course, Trump himself has claimed that he has “the absolute right” to do so, but he has also written “why should I if I have done nothing wrong.”

However, Løkke does not believe that the president’s last point, that a pardon in that case would be an admission of wrongdoing, will stop him.

– He probably just wants to say something like “of course I have not done anything wrong, but I have vindictive and criminal opponents who will persecute me anyway”, believes the American expert.

In Nixon’s time, the Justice Department evaluated whether a president can forgive himself. His conclusion was that it would violate the fundamental rule that no one can be a judge in his own case.

American legal experts, as speculations about Trump may still attempt, have been divided in their remarks. This is untested territory. But doing something no president has done before him will not be new to Trump.

– That’s what goes through the entire Trump presidency, says Løkke.

Will not help

Another variant that has been discussed in the US media as a possibility is that Donald Trump resigns as president shortly before January 20, so Vice President Mike Pence assumes the position temporarily. In that case, you can forgive Trump.

However, several have pointed out that this could put Pence, who likely has ambitions himself to run as a presidential candidate in the future, in a difficult situation. Many will use that trick against you.

– Of course, it can be risky for Pence, but Ford did exactly that with Nixon, says Løkke.

By the way, Ford lost the next presidential election to Jimmy Carter.

In any case, a presidential pardon, not even a pardon, will apply to crimes other than federal ones. Thus, Trump will not be able to help himself, or family members, in the face of the investigations that the New York Prosecutor’s Office has going against the Trump organization.