Senate Republicans including Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn have warned against a Manafort pardon, however, saying it could be disastrous politically. Sam Nunberg, an early Trump campaign adviser who supports the president and now works with the former White House adviser Steve Bannon, said he doesn’t think there should be “any pardons before the midterm elections.”

Perhaps more important are Trump’s high personal stakes in pardoning Manafort, whose conviction arose out of an investigation into the president’s own campaign. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, intimated as much in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday. When Trump complained weeks ago that prosecutors were “beating up” Manafort in court and asked whether he should pardon Manafort, his lawyers advised him to delay a pardon until Mueller’s probe is over. Trump said he would hold off, according to Giuliani, raising questions about whether he is dangling a pardon to keep Manafort from incriminating him.

“It would be dramatically different for Trump to pardon someone directly connected to the Russia investigation, as opposed to someone like Arpaio or a friend or an associate,” said Seth Waxman, a white-collar criminal-defense attorney who served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. “But dangling a pardon—essentially saying, ‘A pardon will be available for you at some point down the line,’ is tantamount to obstruction of justice and witness tampering.” While Trump’s stated intent for such a pardon would likely echo his previous comments about Manafort being treated unfairly—rather than a blunt admission that he is trying to prevent Manafort from cooperating with law enforcement—Mueller “will be looking circumstantially to determine whether there was criminal intent,” Waxman said. “And the surrounding circumstances certainly suggest, if not probe, that Trump’s intent is to prevent or cause a witness not to testify.”

Adding to that circumstantial evidence, Waxman noted, is the disparity between Trump’s treatment of Manafort, who has not been cooperating with prosecutors, and of Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who has turned on the president and testified earlier this week that he had broken the law during the election at Trump’s direction. Trump tweeted earlier this week that Manafort was “brave” for withstanding prosecutors’ pressure, while accusing Cohen of making up “stories” to protect himself. “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family,” Trump wrote. “‘Justice’ took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break’—make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.’ Such respect for a brave man!”

With the dangle of a pardon, Waxman said, “I don’t know how much more a person can say besides, ‘I’m doing this to stop him from testifying against me.’”

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.