Biden could pardon these Trump adversaries amid Dem fears that 'revengeful first year' is looming
President Biden’s days in office are coming down to the wire, and amid President-elect Donald Trump’s transition into the Oval Office, the 46th president is reportedly considering pardoning high-profile allies and fellow Democrats who are viewed as Trump's political foes.
After Trump’s election win over Vice President Harris last month, Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey said he expects Trump to act in a "fascistic way" as president and called on Biden to pardon Democrats and the party's allies who could face prosecution under a second Trump administration.
"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 during a local radio interview last month.
"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."
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The comments were soon echoed by other Democrats and some legal experts in a bid for Biden to sink any prospect of Trump getting "revenge" against his political enemies.
"Biden should keep going with his pardons: Trump, Jack Smith & team, Mueller & team, and a blanket pardon for all on Trump’s enemies list for any and all political statements before December 25, 2024! Merry Christmas," John Dean, CNN contributor and former President Nixon’s White House counsel during the Watergate scandal, posted to social media this month. "Take the wind out of retribution/revenge!"
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As Biden wraps up his final days, Fox News Digital compiled a list of prominent Trump antagonists who have been rumored to be among those considered for pardons.
Cheney, the Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Jan. 6 House Select Committee chair, were the targets of Trump's ire during a recent interview on NBC's "Meet The Press."
"Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps," he said in the interview. "They deleted and destroyed all evidence."
"And Cheney was behind it, and so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee," he continued. "For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail."
The Jan. 6 committee was founded in July 2021 to investigate the breach of the U.S. Capitol earlier that year by supporters of Trump ahead of President Biden officially taking office on Jan. 20. The Jan. 6 committee’s investigation was carried out when Democrats held control of the House.
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Cheney slammed Trump’s remarks in a statement this week, saying they were a "continuation of his assault on the rule of law," but she did not address a potential blanket pardon or whether she would accept such an offer.
"There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting – a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee – and any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct," Cheney said in her statement.
Thompson’s office also slammed Trump’s comment in a statement provided to Fox Digital this week, arguing that "no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day."
"We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so," he added.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was a keystone of the nation's pandemic response, including advising then-President Trump in 2020 on how to handle COVID-19 as it swept across communities.
Fauci’s tenure under the first Trump administration, however, devolved with Trump slamming him and fellow pandemic task force adviser Dr. Deborah Birx as "two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations."
Conservatives, including lawmakers such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., slammed Fauci for his promotion of mask mandates, vaccine mandates and strict lockdown orders that upended the day-to-day lives of Americans.
"Dr. Fauci should be voluntarily removed from TV because what he says is such a disservice, and such fearmongering and almost all of what he says isn’t even matched by the science of his own institute," Paul, who is a doctor, said in 2021 during an appearance on Fox Business.
"It doesn’t obey the science," he said at the time. "There is no scientific evidence that the lockdowns in Michigan have done anything or in California. In fact, the daily incidents of the disease in the last two months has been about almost one and a half times greater in California than it has been in Florida. The death rate is lower in Florida. So there is no real correlation between economic lockdowns, mask mandates or any of this."
Trump allies, including tech billionaire Elon Musk and Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, have endorsed calls to prosecute Fauci if evidence is found of any crimes during the pandemic, including the Wuhan lab leak in China.
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"If there were crimes that he committed, of course I would tell the attorney general to prosecute him, not hold off," Kennedy said on Fox News last year.
Fauci has denied any wrongdoing amid the pandemic, and he told CNN this year, "I don't know what one would prosecute me for. … I played a major role in the development of the vaccine that was responsible for the saving of millions of lives. … I'm definitely guilty of that."
New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have been at the forefront of legal cases aimed at Trump ahead of the 2024 election, frequently landing in the upcoming president’s line of fire for criticism as he battled lawsuits he slammed as "shams."
James, a former City Council member in New York and public defender, launched her run for New York AG during the 2018 cycle while emphasizing that if she were elected, she would aggressively pursue charges against Trump.
"What is fueling this campaign, what is fueling my soul right now, is Trump and his abuses, abuses against immigrants, against women, against our environment. We need an attorney general who will stand up to Donald Trump," James said on the campaign trail in 2018.
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About three months after taking office, James announced an investigation into the Trump Organization, alleging there was evidence indicating the president and his company had falsely valued assets to obtain loans, insurance coverage and tax deductions. The investigation began after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who had previously served federal prison time for violating campaign finance laws, testified before Congress that the Trump Organization exaggerated the value of his assets.
James officially sued Trump, the Trump Organization and its senior leadership for allegedly falsely inflating "his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, to induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums, and to gain tax benefits, among other things."
Trump charged that James had launched a "witch hunt" against him after she explicitly campaigned on a platform to prosecute the president. Trump and his family denied any wrongdoing, with the former president saying his assets had been undervalued.
James was also caught on camera appearing gleeful as Donald Trump Jr. took the stand at his father's civil trial in November, after frequently sitting in the courtroom amid proceedings.
Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in September last year in the non-jury trial that Trump and his organization had committed fraud while building his real estate business by deceiving banks, insurers and others by overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth. Trump appealed the ruling in September this year.
James said this week that she will not drop Trump’s civil fraud judgment after his win last month.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg emerged as another Trump political foe, leading the charge in his criminal trial this year after charging Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records after his Manhattan criminal trial in May. Bragg's office worked to prove that Trump falsified the business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to quiet her claims of an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Trump has maintained his innocence in the case, and he has argued that it was "lawfare" promoted by the Biden administration and Democrats to injure his re-election efforts.
Sentencing in the case was indefinitely postponed after Trump’s election win, with his legal team calling on the presiding judge to drop the case altogether.
Trump was hit with four separate indictments issued between March and August 2023, including Special Counsel Jack Smith prosecuting Trump in two of the cases: a classified documents case and a election interference case.
In the classified documents case, the FBI agents seized 33 boxes of documents in August 2022 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, spurring another legal battle that Trump has called a "scam." Smith, who Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to the job, oversaw the case and charged Trump with 40 felony counts, including allegedly violating the Espionage Act, making false statements to investigators and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
In the election interference case, which focused on alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
Both cases were dropped after the presidential election, but Trump’s repeated criticisms and condemnation against Jack Smith, who he commonly referred to as "deranged," and other prosecutors have continued.
"These cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought. Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party’s fight against their Political Opponent, ME. Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before," Trump posted on social media after the election.
In that same social media post, Trump also took issue with Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, who led the prosecution of Trump in connection to a racketeering indictment for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Trump pleaded not guilty in that case and has maintained his innocence.
"They have also used State Prosecutors and District Attorneys, such as Fani Willis and her lover, Nathan Wade (who had absolutely zero experience in cases such as this, but was paid MILLIONS, enough for them to take numerous trips and cruises around the globe!)" Trump posted. "It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and WON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
California Sen. Adam Schiff, who won election to the Senate last month after serving in the U.S. House, has been a common target of Trump’s for spearheading the first impeachment trial.
The House impeached Trump in 2019 over allegedly leveraging U.S. military aid to Ukraine for political favors involving investigations of the Biden family. Schiff, who served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "reads like a classic organized crime shakedown," opening the floodgates of Trump’s criticisms aimed at the Democrat.
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The Senate ultimately acquitted Trump in the first impeachment as well as his second impeachment involving allegations he incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump and Schiff have continued trading barbs since the impeachment saga.
"We have two enemies. We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries," Trump told Fox News’ "Sunday Morning Futures" in October.
"But the thing that’s tougher to handle are these lunatics that we have inside, like Adam Schiff – Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff," Trump added.
As speculation mounts over who Biden could pardon ahead of his White House exit, Schiff has balked at calls for blanket pardons for those viewed as Trump’s political foes.
"I don't think the idea of a blanket pardon of some kind is a good idea. And I would recommend against it," he told CBS News last week.
Just days ahead of the election, news broke that the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Gen. Mark Milley, slammed Trump as a "fascist" and "the most dangerous person to this country" in Washington Post editor Bob Woodward’s latest book.
Trump has repeatedly slammed Milley since leaving office, including after the United States' botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 when he called Milley a "loser who shamed us in Afghanistan and elsewhere!"
After the election, Milley apparently backtracked his characterization of Trump as a "fascist," saying America will "be OK" under Trump’s second administration.
Trump minced no words on the 2016 campaign trail that if elected president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could face jail time, perhaps previewing a Biden pardon for the Democratic stalwart years later.
It is "awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country," Clinton said during a presidential debate against Trump.
"Because you’d be in jail," Trump shot back in a mic-drop moment that earned praise from conservatives and condemnation from Democrats.
"Lock her up" became a common chant during Trump’s 2016 rallies.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed during his first administration, is set to be fired or voluntarily resign from the position as Trump tees up his new pick for FBI chief, Kash Patel, and as conservatives slam Wray for "failing" his duties at the FBI.
The FBI director has also repeatedly come under fire from Trump, including during his Sunday interview on NBC for the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2022.
"He invaded my home. I’m suing the country over it. He invaded Mar-a-Lago. I’m very unhappy with the things he’s done. And crime is at an all-time high. Migrants are pouring into the country that are from prisons and from mental institutions, as we’ve discussed. I can’t say I’m thrilled," Trump said during the interview.
The FBI declined to comment.
Legal experts have grappled for years with whether a president could pardon himself, but no president has yet tested the waters and actually issued a self-pardon.
Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution states that the president has the power to "grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment." The Constitution does not stipulate who a president can and can't pardon, instead granting them power to pardon any federal crime.
In Biden’s case, Trump has repeatedly slammed his Oval Office successor, including in June when he said Biden is a "criminal."
"Joe could be a convicted felon with all of the things that he’s done," Trump said of Biden in June.
"This man is a criminal. This man – you’re lucky. You’re lucky. I did nothing wrong. We’d have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I did nothing wrong."
Trump’s pick for FBI director, Patel, is known as a "deep state" crusader, who detailed in his book, "Government Gangsters," an alphabetical list of alleged "deep state" members who are either currently or formerly employed in the executive branch.
Among those on the list are Vice President Harris, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Biden.
Patel has advocated for the firings of "corrupt actors" within the FBI and the federal government overall, "aggressive" congressional oversight over the agency, complete overhauls of special counsels, and moving the FBI out of Washington, D.C. His list of alleged "deep state" actors could indicate which political players could face investigation during a second Trump administration, and if Patel is confirmed by the Senate.
Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays, Tyler Olson and Kristen Altus contributed to this report.
