*By Christian Smith*
President Trump is opening himself up to allegations of obstruction by publicly dangling a pardon in front of his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, "Proof of Collusion" author Seth Abramson told Cheddar on Monday.
Prosecutors last week accused Manafort of violating his plea deal, claiming he lied to investigators during their investigation about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Manafort had already guilty to bank and tax fraud in order to avoid convictions on other charges as part of the agreement. The charge that he broke that deal by lying puts him in an "enormous amount of legal danger," said Abramson, a former criminal defense attorney.
President Trump said last week that he had not discussed a pardon for Manafort, but that he would not "take it off the table."
"It's not just that President Trump is refusing to rule out a pardon, he really has many times over the past few months publically dangled a pardon in front of Paul Manafort. And just today, we saw him tweet about Roger Stone and seem to be encouraging Roger Stone not to cooperate with federal investigators," Abramson said. "So there's a real concern here about both obstruction and witness tampering."
Stone, Trump's former campaign advisor, is expected to be interviewed by the special counsel about his contact with WikiLeaks during the campaign. On ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Stone said he would not testify against the president.
In a Monday tweet, Trump approvingly quoted Stone as saying "I will never testify against Trump." He added: "Nice to know that some people still have 'guts!'"
Abramson said he expects Trump's legal jeopardy to only increase.
"I think what we should expect is that things will continue to get worse and worse," Abramson said. "This will get closer to the president. It will go into his family and his top aides, and I think that with every day that he tweets he creates the risk of additional charges of obstruction and witness tampering."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/things-are-only-going-to-get-worse-for-president-trump-says-proof-of-collusion-author-seth-abramson).
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The New York Times and President Donald Trump are fighting again. The news outlet said Wednesday it won't be deterred by Trump's “false and inflammatory language” from writing about the 79-year-old president's health. The Times has done a handful of stories on that topic recently, including an opinion column that said Trump is “starting to give President Joe Biden vibes.” In a Truth Social post, Trump said it might be treasonous for outlets like the Times to do “FAKE” reports about his health and "we should do something about it.” The Republican president already has a pending lawsuit against the newspaper for its past reports on his finances.
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President Donald Trump says a deal struck by Netflix last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. The Republican president says he will be involved in the decision about whether federal regulators should approve the deal. Trump commented Sunday when he was asked about the deal as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. The $72 billion deal would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry.
The two-sentence footnote raised serious concerns about accuracy and credibility.
