A new report from the Wall Street Journal reveals that President Donald Trump has been promising top administration officials pardons before he leaves office — and the left immediately lost its collective mind.
According to the report, Trump has repeatedly raised the idea during meetings, telling advisers he’ll protect them. In a recent gathering, Trump told the room, “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” drawing laughs from those present.
Last year, Trump told advisers he would hold a news conference to announce mass pardons before departing.
The usual suspects rushed to social media to clutch their pearls, claiming that this is Trump admitting that his staff is committing crimes. What they seem to be forgetting is that Joe Biden himself issued a few preemptive pardons, thus establishing the precedent that Trump intends to use to protect his allies from the Democrats’ abuses of power.
“The Wall Street Journal should learn to take a joke; however, the President’s pardon power is absolute,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Now, he may have been joking, but the truth is, it’s necessary. Earlier this year, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised that Democrats would weaponize justice against Trump officials.
“To all members of the Trump administration, the incitement and engagement in state violence against the American people is a serious crime,” he promised. “Donald Trump will leave office long before the five-year statute of limitations expires. You are hereby put on notice.”
That was both a threat and a promise. Jeffries explicitly invoked the five-year statute of limitations, making it crystal clear he’s planning after-the-fact prosecutions of Trump officials and ICE agents once Trump leaves office if Democrats are back in power.
So whether you think Trump was joking or being serious, make no mistake, Democrats have made their position clear, and they have a record of weaponization that makes it quite clear they will follow through. So I expect Trump will issue preemptive pardons to protect administration officials and ICE agents from the Democrats’ revenge plans.
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Here’s the part that some on the left may have forgotten: Trump is following a precedent Joe Biden created. Biden handed out preemptive pardons to his own family members, to the partisan Jan. 6 Committee members, and to Dr. Anthony Fauci — all to shield them from prosecution. Biden didn’t pardon people after they were charged with crimes. He pardoned people to prevent any accountability from ever happening in the first place.
Even former Biden aides acknowledge what their boss did. “By testing the boundaries of the pardon power, Biden cracked the door open, and we can’t now complain about Donald Trump walking through it, even if he blows it wide open,” said Michael LaRosa, a former Biden communications aide. When your own people admit it, the argument is over.
Trump certainly knows what happens when a president leaves office without protecting allies. After his first term, he weighed pardoning White House officials over Jan. 6 and passed. He later said that was a mistake. Biden used the Justice Department to target Trump and his allies, and Trump has every reason to expect Democrats to do it again. They’ve already said they will.
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