Rohrabacher confirms he offered Trump pardon to Assange

Didn’t Assange already make claims that that data trove did not come from Russia?

Yes, "petition" offers plausible deniability in a matter Rohrabacher said needed "handled with care" as it could be harmful to the president.

That interpretation at best offers a thin layer of (not very) plausible deniability. Even if the word "petition" was used, as a politician with decades of experience, Rohrabacher wouldn't even have brought the topic up unless the expectation was that the petition would succeed.

And he also did not request any specific answer. Someone at the DNC is trying _really_ hard to get ahead of damaging information about the DNC leak. If Assange reveals the source, and it's in the DNC itself, that would utterly destroy whatever remains of the "Russian collusion" narrative they worked hard to push for the last 3 years. So you can see why all the stops are being pulled here, and why they are trying to discredit Assange ahead of that.

There’s very few constitutional limits on the power to pardon. I suspect abusive use of the power would fall under the scope of impeachment, but we’d be unlikely to ever see that play out.

Pardons are also interesting because they have to be affirmatively accepted, and they have to be for an actual crime that was committed — so there is endless debate about whether accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt.