Trump may pardon people and corporations for money: Expert

US President Donald Trump is a dishonest and corrupt person who can start pardoning people and corporations for money, an American political commentator has opined. 

Rob Kall, executive editor at OpedNews.com, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday while commenting on a statement of Trump who has said he will “certainly” hand over the White House to Joe Biden, but promised some “shocking” events would take place in the run-up to his departure.

“Certainly, I will,” Trump said on Thanksgiving evening on Thursday, when asked if he would eventually hand over the presidency, NBC News reported. The president was speaking to reporters for the first time since bitterly losing the presidential elections to Biden.

He, however, added, “You’re going to see things happening over the next week or two that are going to be shocking to people.”

Trump shares call to pardon himself before leaving office

Donald Trump has tweeted a call by Rep. Matt Gaetz to consider using his pardoning powers for others including himself.

“We expect all kinds of surprises from Trump. On the one hand, we expect him to try to continue stealing the election, taking it out of the Electoral College using delay tactics, so that we go into the House of Representatives where the Republicans would hand it to Trump. That's become less likely because his attorneys are such a joke. They are so incompetent,” said Kall.

“But the other thing is, he's basically a lame-duck president for the next seven weeks. And he has the ability to do all kinds of crazy things. He can put us into a war, he can pardon all kinds of people. I'm guessing that he's probably going to put up a price to pardon people, and he'll pardon people for money. There's no reason not to expect that somebody as dishonest and corrupt as he wouldn't do something like that. He might do it to corporations. That might be a first,” he added.  

The analyst noted that Trump “might pardon corporations that owe tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. He might make appointments. And he may fire people or he may shut down entire operations or different categories of organizations within the government and some of those while they can be reversed can take six months or a year to restart.”

“So there are all kinds of ways that he can make trouble. And I think we can assume that he will,” he concluded.

Trump’s full pardon for his former national security adviser Michael Flynn has sparked speculation that he might be considering a wave of pardons and commutations of federal crimes, possibly even for himself, before he leaves office.

Trump announced on Wednesday that he had granted clemency to Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in connection with the Russia investigation. The move followed the commutation of the jail sentence of his ally and long-time adviser Roger Stone.

After wiping clean Flynn’s criminal record, Trump shared a call by congressman Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, to consider using his pardoning powers for others including himself.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk