Wake up with the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er: Pre­emp­tive par­don prob­lems and Trump’s embrace of an old foe

How effec­tive that will be is up for debate, but there is a long list of pub­lic fig­ures who have defied Trump and made his ene­mies list. A sweep­ing par­don like the one Hunter got might help them stay out of hot water with the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, though it’s not clear who else is going to ben­e­fit from the president’s most king­like pow­er. 

Democ­rats, who have been tear­ing into Biden for his deci­sion to pro­tect his son, are skep­ti­cal he should do any more med­dling with par­dons for overt­ly polit­i­cal rea­sons, our pol­i­tics team wrote for us this morn­ing. 

“Some Democ­rats con­veyed their con­cerns regard­ing Biden issu­ing blan­ket par­dons, days after mem­bers of his own par­ty dis­par­aged the pres­i­dent for his unprece­dent­ed par­don of son Hunter in which he echoed Trump’s com­plaints of a politi­cized jus­tice sys­tem,” our pol­i­tics team wrote.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gists who spoke with the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er said names such as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D‑CA) and Dr. Antho­ny Fau­ci, the for­mer direc­tor of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Aller­gy and Infec­tious Dis­eases, have been dis­cussed, but they’re doubt­ful any legal reprieve is com­ing for them. 

Skep­ti­cism about blan­ket par­dons for polit­i­cal actors is due for more rea­sons than the fact that Biden has had to endure a bru­tal pub­lic rela­tions week. His sur­prise announce­ment came on the Sun­day after Thanks­giv­ing, hours before he was sched­uled to leave the coun­try on a mul­ti­day trip to Africa. 

At least with his son, he could point to spe­cif­ic instances of crimes that were com­mit­ted, though the full and uncon­di­tion­al par­don includ­ed his­tor­i­cal­ly inclu­sive pro­tec­tions for offens­es Hunter “has com­mit­ted or may have com­mit­ted or tak­en part in.” The oth­er names float­ed haven’t been accused of any crim­i­nal action per se, beyond offend­ing Trump and his allies. 

Using the pow­er of the pres­i­den­cy to thwart Trump’s abil­i­ty to enact “revenge” on his foes might feel good for resis­tance-mind­ed Democ­rats, but it will also under­mine lat­er cri­tiques if Trump, as he is expect­ed, hands out mass par­dons for peo­ple charged with crimes relat­ed to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capi­tol. 

“My guess is the pres­i­dent-elect is going to par­don many of the ter­ror­ists who were con­vict­ed of grand sack­ing and invad­ing the Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021, and, if Joe Biden starts issu­ing blan­ket par­dons, that will under­mine our oppo­si­tion to the Trump par­don, so I think that’s a bad idea,” Brad Ban­non, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gist, told our team. 

There is also the prob­lem that, implic­it in accept­ing a par­don, some­one is admit­ting he or she has com­mit­ted a crime or some kind of wrong­do­ing. 

“Rep. Ben­nie Thomp­son (D‑MS), who was the chair­man of the House Select Com­mit­tee to Inves­ti­gate the Jan. 6 Attack, told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er that he ‘wouldn’t object to’ receiv­ing a pre­emp­tive par­don from Biden, but that he was ‘not sure what I would need a par­don for,’” the team wrote. 

Then, there are the optics of pow­er­ful peo­ple pro­tect­ing their pow­er­ful friends, while less well-known peo­ple are ignored. 

“Are you only com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing your rich, pow­er­ful polit­i­cal insid­er peo­ple who have defend­ed you or are you also going to extend par­dons and clemen­cies to thou­sands of peo­ple whose names are back­logged in front of your admin­is­tra­tion and who have not got­ten the look because you’ve been too busy par­don­ing your dead­beat son?” one per­son told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er. “That’s what I would prob­a­bly f***ing say if I was advis­ing Joe Biden. That whole sit­u­a­tion makes me so angry.”

Biden stuck his neck and lega­cy out to pro­tect his son in the wan­ing days of his pres­i­den­cy. His mem­o­ry in Demo­c­ra­t­ic his­to­ry will already be tar­nished by his deci­sion to remain in the 2024 con­test, pos­si­bly paving the way for Trump to return to the White House. It’s not clear he’s going to give his crit­ics anoth­er rea­son to ques­tion whether his pres­i­den­cy was marred by more bad deci­sions than good. 

Click here to read more about the fight about pre­emp­tive par­dons.

The Ron and Don lega­cy

Gov. Ron DeSan­tis (R‑FL) has run a var­ied race in his rela­tion­ship with Trump. He start­ed out as a Trump-sur­ro­gate suc­cess sto­ry. He mor­phed into a soft skep­tic and hard rival. Even­tu­al­ly, he came back around to stand­ing in line with the leader of the GOP. 

Trump’s dis­taste for dis­loy­al­ty can’t always be cleansed from his palate when a for­mer rebel offers up a mea cul­pa. DeSan­tis, how­ev­er, appears to be on track to recov­er his posi­tion toward the front of the line for being the inher­i­tor of the MAGA man­tle, White House Reporter Chris­t­ian Datoc wrote for us this morn­ing. 

With anoth­er of Trump’s Cab­i­net nom­i­nees on the rocks with Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, reports are grow­ing that the pres­i­dent-elect is look­ing at DeSan­tis to run the Depart­ment of Defense if Pete Hegseth can’t over­come a Pen­ta­gon-sized obsta­cle in his path. 

The rumors of DeSantis’s wel­com­ing back into the fold are an abrupt change from how Trump was talk­ing about him just a year ago. 

“The prob­lem with Ron DeSanc­ti­mo­nious is that he needs a per­son­al­i­ty trans­plant, and those are not yet avail­able,” Trump said in late 2023, Chris­t­ian remind­ed us. “Almost all con­gress­men and women that served with him and knew him well sup­port­ed me, some of them sur­pris­ing­ly so because of their rela­tion­ship with Ron.”

But the two patched over their dif­fer­ences in April after DeSan­tis bowed out of the con­test chal­leng­ing Trump and got back in line behind him. At the time, it looked as though he might have lost his chance at being a seri­ous pres­i­den­tial chal­lenger. 

It’s not a guar­an­tee DeSan­tis could make the leap from the sec­re­tary of defense to the White House, leapfrog­ging Vice Pres­i­dent-elect J.D. Vance in the process — not to men­tion a pos­si­ble entrance into the polit­i­cal area prop­er by first son Don­ald Trump Jr. 

Term lim­its will put an end to DeSantis’s gov­er­nor­ship in two years. A tran­si­tion to the Trump admin­is­tra­tion now would keep him rel­e­vant, in good stand­ing with the GOP, and his polit­i­cal skills sharp. 

How­ev­er, there is anoth­er close Trump ally who could cause an even big­ger prob­lem for DeSan­tis than Vance or the first son, Chris­t­ian wrote. 

“Susie Wiles, Trump’s incom­ing chief of staff and co-cam­paign man­ag­er, has her own his­to­ry with DeSan­tis,” he wrote.

“Wiles, a long­time Flori­da-based Repub­li­can oper­a­tive her­self, helped ush­er DeSan­tis onto the nation­al stage but was ban­ished from his inner cir­cle dur­ing his first term in Tal­la­has­see on sus­pi­cion of leak­ing to the media. DeSantis’s cru­sade against Wiles result­ed in the loss of her lob­by­ing job with Bal­lard Part­ners but didn’t pre­vent Trump from hir­ing her for his 2020 and 2024 cam­paigns.” 

Click here to read more about how the Trump-DeSan­tis part­ner­ship is mak­ing a come­back.

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For your radar

Biden will speak at a per­for­mance hon­or­ing vet­er­ans and their fam­i­lies on the eve of the 83rd anniver­sary of Pearl Har­bor from the White House at 6 p.m.

Har­ris has noth­ing on her pub­lic sched­ule.

White House press sec­re­tary Karine Jean-Pierre will speak with reporters at 2 p.m.