International News

WASHINGTON, July 21, (APP/AFP) – The highest-ranking
Democrat on the US Senate intelligence committee said it was “extremely disturbing” if President Donald Trump was contemplating a pardon for aides that could be implicated in a probe on Russian meddling in last year’s presidential election.
Senator Mark Warner was referring to a Washington Post article late
Thursday saying that Trump was consulting with advisers “about his power to
pardon aides, family members and even himself” in connection to the probe led by special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller.
Trump’s lawyers were attempting to “corral the probe” and were
compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest in order to “stymie his work,” according to the Post, which quoted anonymous sources for the article.
In a statement, Warner said that Russia’s interference in the 2016
elections “was an attack on our democracy. Both the Senate Intelligence
Committee and Special Counsel Mueller are currently investigating whether any coordination occurred between Russia and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.”
” The possibility that the President is considering pardons at this
early stage in these ongoing investigations is extremely disturbing,” said Warner, the senior senator from Virginia and vice-chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence.
“Pardoning any individuals who may have been involved would be
crossing a fundamental line.”
The White House has yet to comment on the Post report.