Panic in White House: Biden is discussing preemptive pardons for those in Trump’s crosshairs

Biden White House mulls pre-emptive pardons for Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney.
Photo: NYPost

The nomination of Kash Patel, who has vowed to pursue Trump’s critics, as FBI director has heightened concerns within the president’s inner circle, writes POLITICO.

President Joe Biden’s senior aides are conducting a vigorous internal debate over whether to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials who could be targeted with President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, according to senior Democrats familiar with the discussions.

Biden’s aides are deeply concerned about a range of current and former officials who could find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments, a sense of alarm which has only accelerated since Trump last weekend announced the appointment of Kash Patel to lead the FBI. Patel has publicly vowed to pursue Trump’s critics.

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.

Biden’s ultimate decision, though, could prove just as consequential to some of the country’s most high-profile public officials as his choice to pardon his son.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment on but did not deny the discussions.

That the conversations are taking place at all reflects the growing anxieties among high-level Democrats about just how far Trump’s reprisals could go once he reclaims power. The remarkable, 11-year breadth of Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter illustrated how worried the White House is about Trump officials seizing any potential openings for prosecution.

At issue, to repurpose a phrase, is whether to take Trump seriously and literally when it comes to his prospective revenge tour against Democrats and others in the so-called Deep State who’ve raised his ire.

End-of-administration pardons are always politically fraught. But President George H.W. Bush’s intervention to spare former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Bill Clinton’s pardon of financier and donor Marc Rich seem quaint compared with what Biden officials are grappling with as Trump returns to the presidency with lieutenants plotting tribunals against adversaries.

And that was before the president pardoned his son, infuriating many of his own party already angry at Biden for insisting on running for reelection as he neared 82. Now, Biden’s aides also must consider whether they should offer the same legal inoculation to public officials who’ve attracted the ire of Trump or his supporters that the president granted his convicted son.

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