Trump reveals why he’d consider pardoning his own staff before leaving office

BS BULLETIN:

President Trump says he would consider pardoning members of his administration before his term ends.
The question was framed around protecting staffers if Democrats later investigate them.
Trump’s immediate response: “Sleepy Joe Biden, he gave pardons to everyone.”

President Donald Trump says he would consider handing out pardons to members of his administration before leaving office.

Asked by TIME whether he was considering pardoning administration officials if Democrats later came after them, Trump’s answer was straightforward: “Yeah, sure I’d do that.”

When the interviewer pressed him on whether he would seriously consider it, Trump immediately reached for the precedent set by former President Joe Biden.

“Well, Sleepy Joe Biden, he gave pardons to everyone,” he said.

Trump returned to the subject moments later.

“Sleepy Joe gave pardons to everybody. He gave them to Fauci. He gave them this. But, you mean, I’m not allowed to give them, but Sleepy Joe’s allowed to give them?” he asked.

Biden issued a series of extraordinary preemptive pardons during his final hours in office in January 2025.

Those included Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members and staff of the House committee that investigated Jan. 6, and police officers who testified before the committee.

Biden said at the time that the pardons were designed to protect public servants from what he feared would be politically motivated investigations or prosecutions under the incoming Trump administration. He emphasized that accepting a pardon should not be interpreted as an admission of wrongdoing.

Biden also pardoned five members of his family before leaving office.

Trump had criticized those moves at the time, arguing that the pardons made their recipients look guilty and created a dangerous precedent. But he also acknowledged that the precedent now existed.

In remarks shortly after returning to office in 2025, Trump said: “Well, I guess now I have precedent to do it.”

At the time, however, he added that he would not want to follow that path. Now, with his own term moving closer to its end, Trump sounds considerably more open to the idea.