President Donald Trump is "acting like an organized crime figure" by rewarding people who lie for him, including telling allies that he's considering a pardon of his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Rep. Adam Schiff said Wednesday.
“It would send a message that at least as far as President Trump is concerned, if you lie on his behalf, if you cover up for him, he will reward you,” the California Democrat said on CNN's "New Day." "He will protect you, but only if he thinks it's in his interest."
Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about interactions he had with Russia's ambassador to the United States in the weeks before Trump took office. The retired general has since sought to withdraw the plea, saying prosecutors violated his rights and tricked him into a plea agreement.
"There are others that lied for him that he’s not going to extend that kind of service to, but it just, frankly reflects so ill on our democracy, on the United States," said Schiff. "Imagine what people around the world think when we have a president who’s acting like an organized crime figure. But this is who Donald Trump is. It’s who he was on the way into the presidency. It will be exactly who he is on his last days of the presidency.”
Schiff added that Trump can pardon Flynn, "assuming that it’s not on the basis of some illicit quid pro quo," but he doesn't think the president is able to pardon himself.
“There are other limitations on the pardon power, but it is very broad and subject to abuse as he has demonstrated,” he said.
Meanwhile, Schiff responded to Joe Biden's comments to NBC News that he wouldn't use the Justice Department to insist that "something happened" when it comes to Trump, saying that he thinks the DOJ will need to look at such issues on a case-by-case basis.
"I don't envy the difficulty of those decisions, but I don't think you can speak with great generality about it," said Schiff.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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