House investigators are looking for more information about conversations Michael Cohen's lawyer allegedly had with President Trump's attorneys about the possibility of Cohen getting a presidential pardon.
Mr. Cohen’s attorney at the time, Stephen Ryan, discussed the possibility of a pardon with lawyers for Mr. Trump in the weeks after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room, the people said. The pardon discussions occurred while Mr. Ryan was working alongside lawyers for Mr. Trump to review files seized from Mr. Cohen’s premises by the FBI to determine whether they were protected by attorney-client privilege.
The president’s lawyers, including Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani and Joanna Hendon, dismissed the idea of a pardon at the time, these people said. But at least one of them, Mr. Giuliani, left open the possibility that the president could grant Mr. Cohen one in the future, they said.
Mr. Ryan also brought up the subject of a pardon with Alan Futerfas, an outside lawyer for the Trump Organization, and the company’s general counsel, Alan Garten, some of the people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Ryan left the impression that if Mr. Cohen couldn’t rely on a pardon, he might cooperate with prosecutors from the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office investigating Mr. Cohen, the people said.
Cohen testified under oath that he never asked for nor would accept a pardon, and this still could hold true if Cohen himself never knew about the conversations.
Mr. Giuliani declined to say whether any lawyers for Mr. Cohen had contacted him, though he said “I would assume ones representing Cohen” were among the several lawyers he said have asked him about pardons for their clients.
After the document review was completed, Mr. Cohen hired a new attorney and publicly broke with the president, saying in an ABC News interview that his “first loyalty” was to his family and country ...
(...)
In letters sent Monday to dozens of Trump associates—including Mr. Sekulow; former White House counsel Don McGahn; and Mr. Cohen—the House Judiciary Committee sought documents related to “possible pardons” for Mr. Cohen, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Mike Flynn.
Dangling the prospect of a presidential pardon to discourage someone from assisting prosecutors in a criminal investigation could constitute witness tampering or obstruction of justice, according to former federal prosecutors.
(...)
Mr. Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out pardoning his former aides being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller and New York federal prosecutors. Asked in November whether he would pardon Mr. Manafort, who was convicted in August of eight counts of fraud and in September pleaded guilty to another two federal crimes, Mr. Trump said it was “very sad what’s happened to Paul” but said he hadn’t offered to pardon him. But, the president added: “I’m not taking anything off the table.”
Mr. Trump hasn’t pardoned any of his associates charged in continuing investigations, and Mr. Giuliani has said the president won’t consider pardons while the investigations are still under way. But, Mr. Giuliani said in an interview late last year, Mr. Trump “reserves the power to do it if and when it’s appropriate.”
Lawyer for Cohen Approached Trump Attorneys About Pardon (WSJ) *Note: WSJ articles appear behind a paywall