According to a former Department of Justice inspector general, Donald Trump is likely to continue to bypass the DOJ for advice on any more pardons as he prepares to leave office, instead relying on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, conspiracy-minded attorney Sidney Powell and other “legal misfits” for guidance.
And that includes whether the president should take the bold and unprecedented step of self-pardoning.
In a Guardian examination of what to expect from acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who took over the DOJ after former AG Bill Barr stepped down last Wednesday, former Justice Department officials expressed fears about what the president might pressure Rosen to do during the president’s final days.
According to Guardian’s Peter Rosen, “Former justice department officials say they are worried Trump will lean on Barr’s less experienced successor, the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to push policies which Trump has suggested he backs, including naming special counsels to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and using the DoJ to investigate Trump’s baseless charges of widespread election fraud.”
In an interview with former prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig, who worked under Ken Starr on the Bill Clinton investigations, prior to Barr’s leaving the president indicated he wanted an AG who would act on his whims and there are now concerns that Rosen may be deluged by Trump with demands.
“There are many things we might expect Trump to order the department to do in the waning days of his presidency,” Rosenzweig explained. “Most likely, is the appointment of a special counsel to probe Hunter Biden. Another is a new Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion, reversing the Nixon-era decision that presidential self-pardons are illegal.”
Former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich agreed, stating, “I don’t think we can fully imagine the range of inappropriate actions Rosen could be asked to undertake. Unlike Barr, Rosen is an unknown and enigmatic figure to the outside world, with no reputation outside the narrow circle of people he has worked with. I doubt that he wants his legacy to be kowtowing to the whims of a president who has taken leave of his senses.”
However, Bromwich added that it is apparent the president has been skipping over asking the DOJ for pardon advice — based on his controversial pardons over the past week — and may seek the counsel of the attorneys who have spearheading his attacks on the 2020 presidential election results.
“I don’t think an OLC opinion on the issue of self-pardon would be worth the exercise for anyone. If it were to conclude that a self-pardon is constitutional, it would be dismissed as a coerced opinion and would further degrade the reputation of OLC,” Bromwich explained before suggesting, “I doubt whether he [Trump] will feel the need to obtain such an opinion. He will choose instead to rely on the legal advice of Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and the rest of the legal misfits he has surrounded himself with.”
Bromwich also had some advice for new AG Rosen if he has concerns about leaving his temporary new job with his reputation intact.
“If I were Rosen, I would change my phone number and go on an extended vacation,” Bromwich advised. “If that’s not possible, he should make it clear that he won’t do anything that violates his oath to the constitution, or his fundamental sense of right and wrong.”
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