President Donald Trump’s decision to offer presidential pardons to disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and 76 other people involved in the failed effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden is not as black and white as it might seem.
The move, sources tell The Independent, goes beyond merely protecting Trump loyalists from the federal government — to covertly pressure state courts, where the president has no power to issue pardons, into tossing out charges against some who still face prosecutions locally.
