WASHINGTON-Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Sunday the president might pardon his jailed, onetime campaign chairman and others ensnared in the Russia investigation once special counsel Robert Mueller's work wraps up, if he believed they were treated "unfairly."
Until then, consideration of clemency is unnecessary, Giuliani said, as the White House presses to bring the yearlong investigation to an end.
Giuliani denied that Trump was trying to send a message to Paul Manafort, who was the 2016 chairman for nearly five months, or others to refrain from cooperating with prosecutors. The former New York City mayor suggested that an end to the investigation could be in sight one way or the other-either by undercutting the Mueller's inquiry as illegitimate, or if necessary, by agreeing to a Trump interview with prosecutors under limited conditions.
"The president is not going to issue pardons in this investigation," Giuliani said. "Because you just cloud what is becoming now a very clear picture of an extremely unfair investigation with no criminality involved in it of any kind."
But, he added, "When it's over, hey, he's the president of the United States. He retains his pardon power. Nobody is taking that away from him. He can pardon, in his judgment."
Manafort was sent to jail last week after a federal judge revoked his house arrest over allegations of witness tampering in the Russia investigation. Trump has criticized that decision as "very unfair" as Manafort prepares for two criminal trials.
Trump has worked outside the traditional pardon process and used his clemency powers in cases where he believed prosecutors may have been motivated by politics. He made clear on Sunday his view of Mueller's investigation, saying it was "on pretty weak grounds right now."
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she thought it would be "more helpful if the president never mentioned the word pardon again with respect to the Russian investigation because he wants to get that Russian investigation completed. And every time he brings up the issue of pardons it gives the investigators something else that they have to look into."
Trump and his lawyers have seized on a Justice Department inspector general's report on the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation that found insubordination and poor judgment at the FBI. Some of the officials who worked on the Clinton investigation also worked on the FBI's Russia probe, but the report did not find that political bias had tainted the Clinton review.