Trump Open to Pardoning Top Staffers Before Term Ends: ‘Sleepy Joe Gave Pardons to Everybody!’

President Donald Trump (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Donald Trump said he would be open to pardoning members of his administration before leaving office, pointing to former President Joe Biden’s use of preemptive pardons in the final hours of his presidency.

During a Time interview published on Thursday the magazine asked the president whether he was considering pardoning administration officials if Democrats regained power and sought to investigate them, Trump replied: “Yeah, sure I’d do that.”

Pressed on whether it was something he would seriously consider, Trump immediately invoked his predecessor: “Well, Sleepy Joe Biden, he gave pardons to everyone.”

After briefly returning to photographs of the White House he had been discussing with the magazine, the president returned to the subject.

“It was a disappointment to a lot of Republicans,” he said. “So that’s just – well, Sleepy Joe gave pardons to everybody. He gave them to [Anthony] Fauci. He gave them this. But, you mean, I’m not allowed to give them, but Sleepy Joe’s allowed to give them?”

Biden did issue an extraordinary series of preemptive pardons as he prepared to leave office on Jan. 20, 2025, including Fauci and retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also pardoned members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as well as police officers who testified before it.

Biden said at the time that the pardons were intended to protect public servants from what he feared could become politically motivated investigations or prosecutions under the incoming Trump administration. The pardons were not issued in response to criminal charges, and Biden said they should not be interpreted as acknowledgments of wrongdoing. Hours before leaving office, Biden also pardoned five members of his own family.

Trump, meanwhile, used his own clemency powers extensively upon returning to office, pardoning roughly 1,500 people charged or convicted over the Jan. 6 attack and commuting the sentences of several others.

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