GOP strategist offers chilling plan for Trump-Maxwell pardon: 'Whether you like it or not'

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal filed by convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, but President Donald Trump propped open the door to pardoning her Monday.

Trump was asked Monday whether he would consider freeing Maxwell, who's serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in grooming and abusing underage girls with the late Jeffrey Epstein. The president claimed ignorance of the matter but added that he would discuss her case with the Department of Justice – which stuck out to Republican strategist Lee Carter as a bit convoluted.

"It does seem like a complicated answer, and one that you would think that he would be prepared to answer," said Carter, a regular fill-in host for Fox Business. "The thing that I think is really interesting about Donald Trump and his use of pardons and executive power is he looks at it really as an exertion of power, not as what's popular. So when he looks at what he's going to say, he's like, 'I just want to make sure that it's very clear I am in charge here, and I am the arbiter of what's going to happen or not,' and I think he might be laying the groundwork to do it."

"Now is he going to?" she added. "That's a really good question. Why would he do it? I think on one hand, if he were to do this, it would put the story to bed. He would get a lot of backlash for it and that would be that. Right now it's a drip, drip, drip. This is constantly coming out and coming to haunt him at every moment, and so I think oneof the strategies he might deploy,say, 'Look, let's just put anend to it, let's get the storyout there and put it to bed onceand for all.'"

Carter capped off her speculative strategy by calling to mind some of the allegations made by at least 28 women against Trump, who was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll and caught on an "Access Hollywood" tape boasting about getting away with molesting women due to his fame.

"But for Trump, Ithink he looks at this as, 'I'm incharge here,'" Carter said. "'I'm the one who'sgoing to decide and, you know,whether you like it or not.' Ithink that's what he does."

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