The White House pushed back Wednesday against reports that President Donald Trump's former lawyer had considered pardoning Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, stressing that such clemency is not currently under consideration for anyone tied to the investigation into alleged Russian election meddling.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred reporters to a statement from White House Counsel Ty Cobb, when asked if Trump administration officials have discussed offering pardons to those facing charges as a result of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

"I would refer you back to the statement from Ty Cobb ... in which he said, 'I've only been asked about pardons by the press and have routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under discussion or under consideration at the White House,'" she said.

Sanders, when pressed to state unequivocally that pardons have not been discussed in relation to the Russia investigation, again pointed to Cobb's remarks, adding that he's "the person that would be most directly involved in this."

"He's got a statement on the record saying that there's no discussion and there's no consideration of those at this time at the White House," she said.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that John Dowd, who recently resigned as Trump's lead attorney in the special counsel's investigation, allegedly raised the idea of the president pardoning Flynn and Manafort with their lawyers last year.

Three people with knowledge of the discussions told the newspaper that Dowd floated the idea of offering the pardons as Mueller built his cases against the former Trump advisers.

It was not clear whether Dowd discussed the proposed pardons with Trump before speaking with Manafort and Flynn's attorneys, the Times reported.

Dowd, however, denied reports that he discussed any such pardons.

Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump, also dismissed the reported discussions, telling the newspaper "never during the course of my representation of the president have I had any discussions of pardons of any individual involved in this inquiry."

Flynn, who briefly served as Trump's national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to one count of "willfully and knowingly" making "false, fictitious and fraudulent statements" to the FBI regarding his his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016.

His admission in federal court in Washington, D.C. came as part of a plea agreement, according to Mueller's office.

Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, meanwhile, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, fraud and money laundering charges tied to his alleged work for a Russian-friendly Ukraine political party.

He is legally challenging the U.S. Department of Justice and Mueller's authority to charge him with money laundering and conspiracy counts as part of the investigation into Russian election meddling.