(Reuters) - A juror who voted to convict Paul Manafort and who is also a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump has some advice for Trump if he is considering whether to pardon his former campaign chairman: don’t do it.
Paula Duncan is so far the only juror to speak out since Manafort was found guilty of 8 out of 18 counts of financial wrongdoing on Tuesday.
“He should absolutely not pardon him. I think it would be a big mistake,” Duncan, 54, told Reuters after an on-camera interview on Friday, adding that she believed it would be a mistake from both a moral and a political perspective.
“If President Trump pardons him without him doing any time at all it would look like President Trump was saying it’s OK that you broke the law. It’s not OK to break the law.”
Trump weighed in on Manafort’s plight while the jury was still in deliberations, calling the tax and bank fraud case against him “very sad” and lauding him as a “very good person.”
