For the past month, President Donald Trump’s political allies and friends, as well as various lawyers, have been rushing against the clock to convince him to fulfill a lengthy wish list of pardons and commutations before Joe Biden takes office in late January.
“We’ve been flooded with requests,” said a senior White House official, who added that a lot of the appeals have been nakedly political and partisan, as is expected at the end of a presidency.
Late last month, Trump finally pardoned his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who less than a week later circulated a petition calling for Trump to declare martial law and undo the election in the wake of a Biden victory. The pardon, a longstanding demand by the Trump faithful, had been in the works for quite some time. According to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, Jason Miller, a senior Trump aide on the campaign, had even suggested to the president in early August that on a national security-themed night of the 2020 Republican National Convention, he should pardon Flynn on-stage during the live TV broadcast. Trump, however, shot down the idea, saying it was “too gimmicky,” the source added.
