Trump says he’d consider issuing pardons to administration officials before he leaves office

President Donald Trump said in a new interview that he’s considering pre-emptively pardoning members of his administration before the end of his second term. “Yeah, sure I’d do that,” he said in an interview this week with Time magazine, which published a transcript of the conversation Thursday. Asked to further elaborate, Trump referenced how President Joe Biden pre-emptively pardoned a slew of people who worked in his administration at the end of his presidency. “It was a disappointment to a lot of Republicans,” Trump said. “Sleepy Joe gave pardons to everybody. He gave them to Fauci. He gave them to this. But you mean I’m not allowed to give them, but Sleepy Joe’s allowed to give them?” Biden had done so in an effort to protect people that Trump had threatened during the 2024 presidential campaign, including former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley; Dr. Anthony Fauci; and lawmakers and staffers of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, citing people who had heard his comments. “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a meeting, according to the report, which also said that he had told advisers last year that he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he leaves office. In Time’s interview, Trump was asked how he is preparing for the scenario of Republicans losing the House majority in the midterm elections. “They’ll probably go after me and I’ll go after them,” Trump said. Democrats have said that if they win back control of the House, their top priority would be focused on healthcare, including reversing Medicaid cuts implemented under Trump and extending Obamacare tax credits that Congress didn’t approve a continuation of when they expired last year. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who could become the next speaker of the House, recently said that a House Democratic majority would conduct aggressive oversight of the Trump administration and “certainly will fight to hold the crooks accountable.” The House has the power to impeach officials and to hold them in contempt of Congress, but doesn’t have the power to bring criminal charges. The House is already slated after Election Day to vote on a resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, though that was introduced by fierce Trump critic Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. On the first day in office last year, Trump had issued pardons and commutations to roughly 1,500 defendants who were charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Since then, he has issued about 170 pardons and commutations to other individuals convicted of crimes, according to a list compiled by the Justice Department. On the last day of Trump’s first term in office, he granted clemency to 143 people, including his former chief strategist and longtime ally Steve Bannon, who had been indicted on wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges but had not yet faced a trial.