With the Mueller investigation over and a preliminary finding of no conspiracy or coordination with the Russian government, the chatter in the fever swamps has swiftly turned from sanctimony and recriminations to calls for Donald Trump to begin issuing pardons. Topping the wish list is Michael Flynn, according to ABC News, which notes that the former national security adviser has racked up some $5 million in legal bills since becoming entangled in the special counsel’s probe. “@realDonaldTrump can’t pardon him soon enough,” tweeted Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, a close Trump ally. OANN pundit Jack Posobiec added to the list longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, who recently pleaded not guilty to felony charges in Mueller’s investigation, and former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who on Tuesday disavowed his guilty plea for lying to the F.B.I. about his communications with a Russian agent.

Trump, it appears, may also have pardons on the mind. Axios reports that the president spent his weekend at Mar-a-Lago expressing regret over some of his many associates who were dragged through the dirt or drained of money by lawyers and legal fees. Senator Lindsey Graham, who was golfing with Trump, mentioned Hope Hicks as one of the people Trump feels most badly about having been exposed to the Mueller investigation. Another, according to an unnamed source, was Paul Manafort, who was recently sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. The president mentioned “a couple of times” the Manafort situation “and how he was treated very unfairly,” the source told Axios. “He said the guy was prosecuted because he worked for me.”

Trump didn’t talk specifically about pardoning Manafort, which Graham said would be a stupid idea. And yet, the prospect of Trump handing out pardons to his most faithful supporters looms large. Trump, after all, has been more magnanimous with his pardon powers than his predecessors, already granting pardons and clemency to numerous ideological allies during the first two years of his administration, primarily to those whom he believed were the victims of politically motivated prosecutors, such as convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza and former sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt. In both cases, the message to other potential cooperating witnesses in the Mueller probe seemed clear: stay loyal and you, too, might be rewarded with a pardon.

Papadopoulos, who has re-invented himself as a pro-Trump sob story, has already asked for one. “It would be malpractice not to,” Caroline Polisi, Papadopoulos’s attorney, told The Washington Post on Monday. “We submitted it prior to the investigation coming to an end, but the results of the investigation only strengthen our arguments.” (Another factor strengthening Papadopoulos’s position with Trump may be his new book, Deep State Target, in which he calls the F.B.I. “mean, nasty, and underhanded,” and claimed they “duped” him into pleading guilty.)

At the moment, according to Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, pardons are out of the question. “No, I don’t think he should, and he’s not,” he told reporters. “I don’t think he is, at least.” But early on in the investigation, Trump’s lawyers reportedly suggested that Trump could pardon both Manafort and Flynn. Neither came to pass due to concerns that Mueller could start looking into why Trump had offered the pardons, but with Trump now having a political opening to indulge his impulses, this result is no longer out of the question.

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