The Justice Department suspects that the White House or related political committee may have accepted money for a presidential pardon. This potential presidential pardon bribery scheme was revealed in court records unveiled in federal court on Tuesday.
The case is the latest legal twist in the concluding days of President Donald Trump's presidency after some of his top advisers have been declared guilty of federal crimes. The unveiling of the court records, published by CNN, is likely to see the president giving pardons to his loyal aides.
The 20-page disclosure comprises partially edited documents made public by the DC District Court on Dec. 1. As part of a bribery-for-pardon investigation, the records also comprise Chief Judge Beryl Howell's Aug. review of prosecutors' request to access documents acquired in a search.
While the filing does not include a timeline of the potential scheme, nor does it have names of those who may have been involved. However, it reveals communications between a lawyer and other people acquired from an office that was raided before the end of this summer.
It is worth noting that no one has been publicly charged with a related crime. While the White House is tight-lipped about the court filing, associates of the president, including Rudy Giuliani, discussed a preemptive pardon with Trump, The New York Times reported. Giuliani, however, denied the allegation, telling CNN that the outlet's report is wrong.
There's no evidence to show that Trump's aides, who are reportedly making appeals to him in a bid to obtain pardons before President-elect Joe Biden takes office next month, are being investigated by the Department of Justice in relation to the recently unveiled filing. The court records suggest there was a filter team that ensured prosecutors did not get their hands on privileged evidence.
The unidentified offices that investigators raided had over 50 digital devices such as computer drives, thumb drives, laptops, iPads, and iPhones, CNN reported. Prosecutors have requested the court to give them access to this filter team's holdings.
The prosecutors claim the devices had emails showing criminal activity, such as a secret lobbying scheme, a bribery conspiracy that offered a considerable political contribution in exchange for the reprieve of a sentence or a presidential pardon, for a convicted defendant whose details have been edited, as per the redacted documents.
Attorneys and clients' communication is ideally considered privileged and not revealed to prosecutors while they are building their cases. Howell, however, allowed the prosecutor access in this case.