President Trump’s top personal lawyer reportedly raised the prospect of pardons for two former campaign advisers as the special-counsel inquiry into alleged election interference by the Kremlin was “building cases” against them. John Dowd, 77, who resigned from the president’s legal team last week, is claimed to have held talks with lawyers representing the former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The New York Times reported last night that the conversations took place last year, as the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation gathered pace. Any discussion of pardons could be seen as an attempt to influence Mr Flynn and Mr Manafort not to co-operate with Mr Mueller, who could now investigate whether Mr Dowd had sought to thwart…

Source: The Times March 28, 2018 23:15 UTC