President Joe Biden is weighing preemptive pardons for his allies in Congress and current and former federal officials, senior Democrats familiar with the discussions told Politico’s Jonathan Martin.
Receiving a preemptive pardon would indicate an admission of guilt, although some Democrats claim a preemptive pardon would only be intended to block President-elect Donald Trump from cleaning up Washington.
If Biden delivered preemptive pardons, it would fulfill the request of Democrats and media allies.
The deliberations touch on pardoning those currently in office, elected and appointed, as well as former officials who’ve angered Trump and his loyalists.
Those who could face exposure include such members of Congress’ Jan. 6 Committee as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Trump has previously said––Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!” Also mentioned by Biden’s aides for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The West Wing deliberations have been organized by White House counsel Ed Siskel but include a range of other aides, including chief of staff Jeff Zients. The president himself, who was intensely focused on his son’s pardon, has not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
A White House spokesperson declined to confirm or deny the discussions to Politico.
For weeks, Democrats and media allies urged Biden to offer preemptive pardons to his allies, Breitbart News reported Wednesday.
“If it’s clear by January 19th that [revenge] is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people, because that’s really what our country is going to need next year,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) told Boston Public Radio.
“Does it concern me that revenge would be part of her mission? Of course it does,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told ABC News in late November in relation to Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee-designate for FBI Director.
Democrats and media elites list those deserving a preemptive pardon as Christopher Wray, Justice Department lawyers, Joe Biden (himself), the whole Biden family, Liz Cheney, Mark Milley, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Kinzinger, among others.
Jill Wine-Banks, a former assistant Watergate special prosecutor, was “relieved and thrilled” Joe Biden pardoned Hunter Biden and encouraged him to issue preemptive pardons to those “threatened by the injustice”
“I hope that President Biden will also issue preemptive pardons to all of those people threatened by the injustice of what will become the Department of Justice in the Trump administration,” she told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart. “That, of course, includes Jack Smith and all of his staff, many Department of Justice lawyers.”
“It includes President Biden himself, although we don’t know that anyone can legally pardon themselves,” Wine-Banks continued. “He will need a pardon because he is going to be harassed and charged for no crimes whatsoever. Donald Trump has promised that.”
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
