Donald Trump’s team is pushing back Tuesday against Michael Wolff’s claim that Jared Kushner was able to dissuade the former president from issuing himself a pardon, telling DailyMail.com that the author is using ‘fake news’ to ‘try and sell books.’
‘Michael Wolff sat for over two hours in interviews with President Trump and never asked him about this [pardons], or other false claims Wolff has been making,’ Trump’s spokesperson Liz Harrington told DailyMail.com.
‘If he had, President Trump would have knocked them down, but instead Wolff decided to try to sell books with more Fake News,’ she added.
The president claims he never discussed pardons with his son-in-law.
Wolff wrote in excerpts published Monday from his third book on the Trump administration that in the final days before leaving office, Kushner had to convince Trump not to issue a preemptive presidential pardon for himself or members of his family.
‘This is total fake news. It never happened,’ Harrington pushed back.
Donald Trump’s spokeswoman Liz Harrington told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Michael Wolff’s is trying to ‘sell books with more fake news’. She said: ‘Michael Wolff sat for over two hours in interviews with President Trump and never asked him about … false claims Wolff has been making. If he had, President Trump would have knocked them down’
Other than the pardon story, excerpts from the book also claim that Trump and his wife Melanie are ‘treated like zoo animals’ at Mar-a-Lago and have asked visitors at his South Florida golf club for recommendations for lawyers.
‘All these stories from the Michael Wolff book are not true,’ Harrington tweeted out on Tuesday. ‘Wolff never asked President Trump about them, if he had, he would have refuted them. Fake News!’
Wolff’s wrote in Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, of which excerpts were published by The Times of London on Monday, that Trump said to Kushner or pardoning himself: ‘They say I can. Unlimited pardon power.’
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka and served as his senior adviser, argued that Trump giving himself a preemptive federal pardon could motivate states to go after him even more.
Presidents’ only pardon power is at the federal level – not state – and Trump is already facing multiple lawsuits at the state level.
Wolff’s book claims that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was able to lobby against the then-president using his powers to pardon himself at the federal level before leaving office, claiming the states would come after them harder if he did so
Wolff wrote in his book, which comes out July 27 2021, that Trump should have pardoned his whole family, even his 15-year-old son Barron.
‘Still, with such a lot of people out there who wanted to hurt him, he should pardon the whole family, shouldn’t he – even Barron?’ Wolff wrote. ‘Kushner elided. (Other family members would note that Kushner did, though, grab a pardon for his own father.)’
Michael Wolff’s book ‘Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency’ will hit shelves on July 27, 2021
The excerpts explain that Trump was ‘excited’ by his pardon power at the start of his presidency – something that was made clear by the fact he granted clemency to 237 individuals in his four years.
Wolff notes, however, that the president got ‘bored by the process and the details’ and started asking people for their ‘top pick’ for a pardon.
In January 2021, the last 20 days of his presidency, Trump granted clemency to 116 people.
After Trump’s 2020 loss, it appeared his relationship with Kushner began to sour.
A New York Times report last month revealed that Kushner is stepping back from politics to focus on his book and wants a ‘simpler relationship’ with his father-in-law.
Kushner (right) and wife Ivanka (left), Trump’s eldest daughter, go out for a stroll in Miami, Florida on June 12, 2021 with children (L-R), Arabella, 9, Joseph, 7, and Theodore, 5
Kushner and Ivanka share three children, Arabella, 9, Joseph, 7, and Theodore, 5. The family resides in a condo in Miami since leaving their luxurious rental home in Northwest Washington, D.C.
The couple purchased a $32.2 million lot of land on Indian Creek Island, a luxury, high-security community in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where they are building their new home.
Kushner, who is Jewish, oversaw Trump’s 2020 campaign. He and Ivanka served as senior advisers when Trump was president, and Kushner specifically focused on peace talks in the Middle East and helping with Israeli relations in the region.
Another report reveals that Trump has questioned that role Kushner really played in Middle East peace negotiations and is allegedly worried he will try to take credit for successes of the Trump administration.