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WASHINGTON: The United States Department of Justice is investigating a potential 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 heavily worded order Tuesday (December 1) outlining what she called a “pardon bribery” 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.
According to the order revealed by Howell, 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.”
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The Justice Department had to ask Howell’s permission to view certain electronic communications 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.
Prosecutors had said they planned to “confront” three unidentified individuals with the communications and terminate their investigation.
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 Federal Bureau of Investigation 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.
