A pardon for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is an option, President Trump said.
“It was never discussed, but I wouldn’t take it off the table,” Trump told the New York Post in an interview Wednesday. “Why would I take it off the table?”
Manafort, 69, was convicted of eight counts of bank and tax fraud in federal court in Virginia this summer. His trial was the first stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Just before a second Manafort trial in federal court in Washington, D.C., was set to begin in September, Manafort accepted a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and pleaded guilty to two federal crimes. As part of the deal, Manafort agreed to “fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly” answer questions of interest to the special counsel.
But in new court filings this week, Mueller’s team said Manafort breached the terms of his plea deal by lying to the FBI and special counsel’s office on “a variety of subject matters.”
The New York Times reported that Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, briefed the president’s attorneys multiple times about Manafort’s conversations with investigators.
Legal experts told the New York Times that the agreement may be part of an effort by Manafort to secure a pardon from Trump.
When pressed Tuesday about whether the president is considering a pardon for Manafort, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters she is “not aware of any conversations for anyone’s pardon.”
Trump, meanwhile, was asked by the Washington Post during an interview Tuesday whether he was planning to “do anything to help” Manafort. The president, however, spoke off-the-record, with the Post’s reporters in response to the question.
