Michael Bromwich, the former Department of Justice inspector general, believes Donald Trump will likely lean on lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell for advice on a possible self-pardon, The Guardian reported.
Bromwich made the comments while speaking on the possibility of Trump pressuring acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen for what the publication called “big and potentially risky political and legal favors.”
“I doubt whether he [Trump] will feel the need to obtain such an opinion,” the former DOJ official said.
“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.”
Nevertheless, Bromwich said Rosen would be wise to change his phone number and “go on an extended vacation.”
“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.”
Giuliani and Powell are two of the most prominent supporters of Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Notably, the president has allegedly discussed the creation of a special counsel focused on election fraud that would be headed by Powell .
As Trump’s time in the White House nears its end, the debate over whether he can offer himself a pardon continues. In an op-ed for The Hill , law professor Jonathan Turley claimed there is merit to both sides of the debate, which he noted has been going on for decades.
“In my view, the main obstacle is political, not constitutional,” he said, continuing to claim that American attorney Andrew Weissmann is attempting to remove this barrier.
Turley , who testified during Trump’s impeachment trial in favor of the president, previously argued that while the U.S. Constitution doesn’t explicitly prohibit self-pardons, the act would be an abuse of power on a great scale than former President Bill Clinton’s purported abuse of pardons.
As reported by Law & Crime , Powell, Giuliani, and Trump’s campaign are being sued by Dr. Eric Coomer, an employee of Dominion Voting Systems, for the trio’s involvement in what the publication calls an “unsubstantiated and baseless conspiracy theory.” In particular, the group is involved in claims that the company was part of a plot to steal the election from the head of state. Coomer’s lawsuit claims the theory has led to “severe” emotional distress due to him being branded as a “traitor” and subjected to death threats.
