After Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, lobbyists are now hoping for a blitz of similar moves before the 45th US president leaves the White House on 20 January. “This is one unfettered presidential power the president enjoys using,” one former administration official was quoted as saying by Reuters, amid media reports that lists of people are being finalised.

He might enjoy using such powers but actually Mr Trump has granted clemency sparingly – doing so just 44 times over nearly four years in office. By contrast ex-President Obama pardoned offenders or commuted sentences nearly 2,000 times in eight years, according to the Pew Research Center. Although Mr Trump has not publicly indicated how far he plans to go in his final days in the White House, some experts predict his clemency orders will extend beyond those associates, like Michael Flynn, who were ensnared by the Special Counsel inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election.(BBC)…[+]