A journalist who has written four books about President Donald Trump revealed on Tuesday that the president is exhibiting behavior that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein warned about years ago.
Michael Wolff, who has described himself as a "Trump chronicler," discussed Trump's use of the presidential pardon power on a new episode of "Inside Trump's Head," a podcast he co-hosts with Joana Coles of The Daily Beast. Wolff said that Epstein warned Trump would use the pardon power in a "childlike" way, and some of Trump's recent pardons seem to indicate.
"Jeffrey Epstein had a kind of riff about this, because even before Trump became president, he would talk about, 'If Donald became president and he had the pardon power..." Wolff said. "Trump is often gone on and talked about this in a kind of wide-eyed incredulity. 'I can pardon anyone. No one can do anything about it. If I pardon them. I have absolute power.'"
Multiple pardons Trump has issued during his second term have raised concerns among legal analysts. Most recently, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of Binance, who was convicted of money laundering and forced to pay a more than $4 billion fine.
Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for running a drug smuggling operation that The New York Times said "flooded" the U.S. with cocaine.
Wolff suggested these pardons are some of the acts that Epstein warned Trump would take as president.
"Epstein had focused on this and said he's going to do that," Wolff continued. "He loves having this kind of thing. He loves showing the power that he has, and he said he would do it in a childlike way."