While taking questions on his way to Scotland, Trump repeatedly held open the possibility of pardoning Maxwell for her crimes.

“Well, I don’t want to talk about that,” Trump said initially.

When pressed, he said, “It’s something I haven’t thought about,” while conspicuously adding, “I’m allowed to do it.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Trump has appeared to dangle a pardon over someone providing evidence that could impact him personally and politically. (In this case, he has demonstrated past personal ties to Epstein, and his administration is scrambling to clean up its botched handling of the Epstein files after previously promising to release them.)

A similar situation played out during the Russia investigation, when Trump repeatedly left open the possibility of pardoning key witnesses like Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen. Critics alleged this amounted to obstruction of justice.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report didn’t draw conclusions on possible obstruction, but it did cite Trump’s pardon comments as “evidence” that Trump’s actions “had the potential to influence Manafort’s decision whether to cooperate with the government.”

Manafort indeed wound up being a decidedly uncooperative witness, with a bipartisan Senate report saying his repeated lies hamstrung its own investigation. And Trump later pardoned him in a move that could certainly be understood as a reward for his lack of cooperation.

That bit of history looms large here, given the parallels.