Sen­ate Democ­rats pon­der pre­emp­tive par­dons for Trump’s polit­i­cal foes

The con­ver­sa­tions come against the back­drop of Trump’s rhetoric on the cam­paign trail in which he’s threat­ened to seek revenge on indi­vid­u­als he con­sid­ers his polit­i­cal foes, refer­ring to them as “ene­mies from with­in.”

These con­cerns have become even more ele­vat­ed after announc­ing his picks for attor­ney gen­er­al, Pam Bon­di, and FBI direc­tor, Kash Patel, who have echoed Trump’s promis­es to imprison and pros­e­cute polit­i­cal ene­mies who have skirt­ed laws.

“There have cer­tain­ly been dis­cus­sions about this among some. How could there not be after all of the threats Trump has issued,” one Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic aide said, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to speak can­did­ly about the sit­u­a­tion.

Trump has pre­vi­ous­ly cir­cu­lat­ed social media posts that call for the jail­ing of House law­mak­ers who inves­ti­gat­ed the attack on the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6, spe­cial coun­sel Jack Smith, Leti­tia James, the New York Attor­ney Gen­er­al who over­saw Trump’s civ­il fraud case. The threats have also extend­ed to Biden him­self, Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris, For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence, and even Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer (D‑NY).  

He also has sug­gest­ed that his for­mer Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Mil­ley com­mit­ted a crime once pun­ish­able by death, called Sen­a­tor-elect Adam Schiff a “sleaze­bag and trai­tor,” and has insist­ed that he and for­mer House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi be “pros­e­cut­ed.” He also tar­get­ed for­mer Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who cam­paigned for Har­ris, sug­gest­ing he want­ed mil­i­tary tri­bunals to pun­ish her.

Even before Biden issued a par­don for his son Hunter, who was crim­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed this year on tax and gun charges, on Sun­day, Sen. Ed Markey (D‑MA) pub­licly float­ed the idea that the pres­i­dent should con­sid­er “pre­emp­tive par­dons” to peo­ple Trump has threat­ened to pros­e­cute. 

“I think that with­out ques­tion, Trump is going to try to act in a dic­ta­to­r­i­al way, in a fascis­tic way, in a revenge­ful first year at least of his admin­is­tra­tion toward indi­vid­u­als who he believes harmed him,” Markey said in an inter­view with Boston Pub­lic Radio.

“If it’s clear by Jan. 19 that that 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,” he added.

Markey went on to cite Ger­ald Ford’s par­don of Richard Nixon over the Water­gate scan­dal in 1974, call­ing it a way to “close that chap­ter” and move on “to an agen­da that deals with ordi­nary fam­i­lies.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D‑OR) said he’d need more time to think about whether Biden should pur­sue pre­emp­tive par­dons, but empha­sized he under­stood why the pres­i­dent recent­ly worked to shield his son.

“Let me just talk about the one that’s on everybody’s mind, the one that’s rel­e­vant, giv­en the lengths that Don­ald Trump has gone to politi­cize the Jus­tice Depart­ment, I con­sid­er what was done by the pres­i­dent over the week­end as under­stand­able,” Wyden said.

How­ev­er, a major­i­ty of Sen­ate Democ­rats are not on board with Markey’s per­spec­tive on “pre­emp­tive par­dons.” Sen. Tim Kaine (D‑VA) said the push is some­thing he’d advise Biden “not to do.” Sen. Peter Welch (D‑VT) said he’d instead urge Trump to vow that he will not go after his polit­i­cal oppo­nents before tak­ing office.

“I don’t know how you par­don a per­son that’s not been charged with any­thing. I don’t think that can hap­pen,” said out­go­ing Sen. Joe Manchin (I‑WV), who went on to say he believed Trump should be par­doned in an effort to “bal­ance things out and calm things down.”

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Sev­er­al Democ­rats out­side of Con­gress said the idea of Biden par­don­ing Trump’s polit­i­cal foes caus­es great con­cern about optics, espe­cial­ly since no one threat­ened has cur­rent­ly been charged with a crime.

“The left is hop­ing that Trump will not be per­mit­ted to engage in any inter­pre­tive acts for slights once felt in the past, is that pos­si­ble? Not sure,” said Hank Scheinkopf, a long­time Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gist. “But is it good to be politi­ciz­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice more than it has already been done — the answer is no.”

Ram­sey Touch­ber­ry con­tributed to this report.