Trump will leave the White House at '8am Wednesday' – the morning of Biden's inauguration

Donald Trump is reportedly set to leave the White House for Florida at 8am on Wednesday after issuing around 100 pardons to white-collar criminals, high-profile rappers and a jailed Florida eye-doctor.

The outgoing president is due to hold a farewell ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland, before his departure from the nation’s capital on the morning of Joe Biden’s inauguration, two sources told USA Today.  

White House aides have reportedly sent out invitations for the event, with guests instructed to arrive between 6am and 7:15am. 

Specific details regarding the ceremony are said to still be under consideration, but it may include a color guard and 21-gun salute. 

Attendees are permitted to bring up to five guests but have been instructed to wear masks throughout, Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs reported.    

For his final full day in office on Tuesday, Trump is also reportedly gearing up to issue around 100 pardons and commutations.

A rumored recipient of one of the clemency actions is said to be Dr. Salomon Melgen, a prominent eye doctor from Palm Beach who was imprisoned in 2018 after being convicted on dozens of counts of health care fraud.

So far, Trump has reportedly made no plans to pardon himself or his children, CNN reported. 

The White House reportedly held a meeting Sunday to finalize the list of pardons, according to two sources. 

Trump had previously issued a number of pardons in the build up to Christmas, but reportedly put them on pause in the days before and after the riots at the US Capitol on January 6.

White House aides told CNN Trump was entirely focused on the Electoral College count in the days preceding the riot, which prevented him from finalizing his decision on pardons. Officials then expected him to resume of January 6, but he reportedly withdrew after being blamed for inciting the insurrection. 

Trump’s Tuesday batch of clemency actions is expected to include a mixture of criminal justice reform-minded pardons and more controversial ones issued to his political allies. 

He could also decide at the last minute to grant pardons to members of his family or even himself, though that’s not thought to be currently under consideration.

Trump’s desire to pardon himself, his children, and his personal layer Rudy Giuliani has said to have been complicated by the Capitol riots, which led to his second impeachment.

The 45th US president was reportedly advised to forgo a self-pardon in the riot’s wake, because it would appear as if he was guilty of something, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. 

Trump was further advised to refrain from granting clemency to anyone involved in the deadly attack on the Capitol, in contrast to his initial stance that those involved were ‘patriots’ who had done nothing wrong.

‘There are a lot of people urging the President to pardon the folks [involved in the riots]’ Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News. ‘To seek a pardon of these people would be wrong.’

While Trump is expected to leave the White House early Wednesday morning, he could continue to issue pardons up until noon on Inauguration Day. 

Other high profile names such as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange are also not currently believed to be among those set to receive a pardon, though the list is said to be fluid.

Trump’s allies predict the president will issue pardons that he believes may be of benefit to him after he leaves office.

‘Everything is a transaction. He likes pardons because it is unilateral,’ a source told CNN. ‘And he likes doing favors for people he thinks will owe him.’ 

One of those said to be in line to receive a pardon is Dr. Salomon Melgen.

Melgen, once a prominent Palm Beach eye doctor, received a 17-year sentence in 2018 for stealing $73 million from Medicare by persuading elderly patients to undergo tests and treatments they didn’t need for diseases they didn’t have.

In total, he was convicted of 67 crimes, including health care fraud, submitting false claims and falsifying records in patients’ files.

In 2017, he was also ensnared in a public corruption scandal alongside New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez.

A federal jury remained hung after a two-and-a-half month trial, in which prosecutors tried to prove Melgen’s gifts to Menendez were actually bribes. 

In return, prosecutors claimed Menendez interceded with Medicare officials investigating his practice, obtained visas for Melgen’s foreign mistresses, and pressured the State Department to intervene in a business dispute he had with the Dominican government.

Both men pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of fraud and bribery saying the European and Dominican vacations and other gifts were tokens of their longtime friendship.

After a judge threw out of the charges in the case, prosecutors decided in January 2018 not to retry the bribery case and it was subsequently dismissed by the Justice Department.

Inside the White House, there has been a reported frenzy among allies lobbyists and others hoping to cash in on their loyalty to Trump and secure a pardon.

The New York Times reported Sunday some of those people were getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of felons hoping for pardons. 

In one document, a former top adviser to Trump’s campaign agreed to receive a payout of $50,000 if he could sway the president to pardon John Kirakou, a former CIA officer convicted of disclosing classified information.

Separately, Rudy Giuliani’s associate told Kiriakou over drinks at Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. last year that if he paid Trump’s personal attorney $2 million, he would use his sway as one of the president’s closest advisers to secure him the pardon. 

Although Kiriakou did not accept the offer, an associate alerted the FBI to Giuliani potentially illegally selling pardons – but the former New York City mayor and Trump’s personal attorney has challenged this characterization.

Giuliani has come under fire recently for firing up a crowd of thousands of Trump supporters, telling them to engage in ‘trial by combat’, before they marched over to the U.S. Capitol and stormed the building to delay Congress from certifying the election for Joe Biden.

Recently reports also reveal Giuliani has fallen out of favor with the president in his failed legal attempts to challenge the election results.

 

This is a developing story…