Trump Promises Mass Pardons to Staff Before Leaving Office

[demmiblue]

Source: WSJ

“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting to laughs, according to people with knowledge of the comments. That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.

In one conversation with advisers in the dining room next to the Oval Office last year, Trump said he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he left office, some of the people said. The people said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts.

The unconditional power to pardon is one of the most sweeping powers offered to the presidency. This term, Trump has wielded clemency far differently than any other president, dispensing some 1,600 grants to date. Many have gone to allies and donors, or those who had hired them, coming after a social pull-aside or a round of golf. Some have received bipartisan criticism, including one to a crypto billionaire whose company boosted Trump’s own digital-currency company, and another to a former Honduran president convicted of conspiring with cartels to ship cocaine to the U.S. In Trump’s first term, he signed fewer than 250 pardons and commutations.

The president has repeatedly raised the specter of pardons with White House aides and other administration officials, particularly when staff have suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over decisions, people familiar with the comments said. Trump is known to joke about matters that he later seriously pursues, and the frequent references have led some aides to believe he is serious about the pardons, too.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-promises-mass-pardons-to-staff-before-leaving-office-d7274d32?st=8iABpV&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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Seems like they all know they are commiting crimes?

— Judd Legum (@juddlegum.bsky.social) 2026-04-10T21:22:22.979Z

[Blues Heron]

1. That's clearly abuse of power- he should be impeached for saying this.

[Polybius]

26. While I want him impeached for many things, this isn't one of them, as (so far) actions aren't involved

He can technically that say he was joking.

[Blues Heron]

31. You can impeach someone for anything if you have the votes, it's like voting someone off the island

[Polybius]

35. Absolutely, as Gerald Ford one famously said

[Blues Heron]

37. I'd settle for any infraction, like they got Al Capone on tax charges after all the gangland slayings

[graycampervan]

30. 200 feet

I thought he'd already done that? There isn't one of them that isn't a criminal.

[dweller]

2. Jokes on them

He has no plans to leave office

Best we can hope for is he drops dead first


😑


✌🏻

[SunSeeker]

24. Let's hope for the best then. nt

[Dan]

3. And everyone of them

Should be called before Congress under oath and questioned about what illegal activities they were involved in with and without Trump.

[wnylib]

32. Yes. Even if they can't be prosecuted, they should testify.

Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2026, 01:40 AM - Edit history (1)

It's important for the American people to know the truth about what has happened. The pardoned people can be subpoenaed. If they refuse the subpoena, they can be held accountable for that. They cannot take the 5th if pardoned. If they lie under oath, they can be charged with perjury.

The facts have to come out.

[Goonch]

4. ;-{) PARDON

[AltairIV]

5. I do not think it matters....

Those advisers, and cabinet officials should be swept up within hours of the new President is sworn in and arrested and immediately be transported to rhe Hague for Human Rights Violations and additional charges of War Crimes for others. Staffers and cabinet officias shoud be arrested and transported to harmed states on various State charges and held without bail. Some others should be made to just vanish into CIA black ops sites and erased from history.

[Grins]

6. Like Hitler handing out the cyanide before the fall of Germany...

And The Wall Street Journal of all media outlets, is saying that.

This is where the sane of them should, in Mark Twain’s words, “pause and reflect” on what they have done.

Imagine if a Democrat had done this…?

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Which is a pretty open acknowledgement that all of them have been breaking the law on a regular basis. nt

[Lem1951]

8. Pardons

well, he can pardon for federal crimes but I suspect that there are a lot of state Attorneys General who would be glad to prosecute under state law !!!!!

[pat_k]

9. Let's hope creative state prosecutors find ways to hold...

... them accountable for persecution of state officials and bad faith acts intended to damage residents of the state.

And I have no doubt that there is plenty of personal financial corruption being perpetrated that have a nexus at the state-level.

And if the intent to issue blanket pardons doesn't scream "we are corrupt beyond belief and abusing public office in everything we do," I don't know what does.

[liberalgunwilltravel]

10. So, Trump has admitted

His entire administration in filled with criminals.

[underpants]

11. But...but...Biden did it

Biden did it because he saw or knew how weaponized Trump’s DOJ would be. It is.

[pat_k]

12. Seems to me there will be grounds for civil causes of action.

Seems to me many in the regime are participating in a conspiracy to violate the civil rights of various individuals and populations. No presidential pardon can cover that.

42 U.S. Code § 1985 - Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1985
...
, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.

[angrychair]

13. That has its own shortcomings

Let's say he pardons Pam Bondi. Now that she is pardoned she can be compelled to tell the truth about any and all crimes for which she was pardoned, no taking the fifth or refusal to answer questions.
If she lies then that is a new crime and she can be arrested for lying.

Just an example but it would be nice to get her, Lutnick and the while cast and crew in the hot seat if that happens.

While we cannot arrest them, we can expose them for the pedophiles and liars they are to the whole world.

[Buddyzbuddy]

14. In other words...

I'm telling you up front, don't be surprised when I pardon Bondi, Maxwell and any of my fellow perverts that participated in the Epstein crime wave in addition to those that have been or are currently committing crimes on my behalf. I'm telling this to you now so you keep your mouths shut and stop worrying about me dying before I sign off on your pardons.

[sakabatou]

15. So... everyone around him is guilty of a federal crime

[bluestarone]

19. That's how i'm reading this

[Orrex]

28. Yes, but he'll spin it as protection against "malicious prosecution by the Democrat party"

And the media will say "Yep" and ask no questions.

[William Seger]

16. "That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line."

Yes, #rump's random access memory for numbers has a built-in auto-increment function, probably linked to his ego-inflation algorithm.

[OC375]

17. Good, he's thinking about leaving already.

[bluestarone]

18. I see this as the supreme court created a mother fucking KING MONSTER!

Jesus Christ will a huge BLOOD CLOT take this fucker out of our lives?

[IronLionZion]

20. When is he leaving office?

I bet they are thinking about Nuremburg style trials. They can't erase that part of history. Ask Germany.

[surfered]

21. A green light to now start getting while the getting's good.

[BattleRow]

22. I beg your pardon

has an entirely new frame of reference now.

[duckworth969]

23. Can't pardon shit if you're 6 feet under Chump

[SamuelAdams]

25. Obviously he can't be trusted.

But if he follows through on this, can't that be used to investigate him? Most experts don't think a president can pardon himself. Him promising pardons for committing crimes on his behalf shows conscience of guilt.

[kacekwl]

27. Well then we as a people

are going to have to administer justice. Mussolini style.

[RainCaster]

29. Come on Heart Attack!

It can't come quick enough.

[enigmania]

33. Highly profitable, I'm sure.

[Scrivener7]

34. Good. He said he will. That means he won't.

[travelingthrulife]

36. So they all know they are committing crimes.

[WestMichRad]

38. "Continue committing crimes on my behalf."

[The Wizard]

39. Accepting a pardon is a confession of guilt.

[AllyCat]

40. Why should he think he needs to do this if everything was above board?

[dave99]

41. One can not PARDON when the receipent has not been charged.

worthless pieces of paper

[Bayard]

42. President Biden did some preemptive pardoning for people he knew trump would come after

[Bayard]

43. trump says the president has an "absolute right" to pardon himself.

He thinks this will be his ultimate escape hatch. WRONG!

"Two kinds of pardons would function to place a president above the law: a self-pardon and a self-protective pardon (that is, a pardon that has the intent and effect of impeding an investigation into a president or his interests and that would thus amount to a self-pardon).

Broadly, these pardons would violate the president’s duty to faithfully execute the law as prescribed by the Constitution’s Take Care Clause and Oath Clause—both of which bind the president to exercise his powers in a way that serve the public’s interest, not for “self-dealing, self-protection, or other bad faith, personal reasons.” Such pardons would also run afoul of the power’s purpose as articulated by federal courts to further “the public welfare.” Former Supreme Court Chief Justice and President Howard Taft reflected that “[t]he only rule he [a president] can follow is that he shall not exercise it against the public interest.”

An article well worth reading on presidential pardons, their own, and in general:
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/the-presidential-pardon-power-explained/#:~:text=The%20Department%20of%20Justice%20relied,Finally%2C%20such%20pardons

[summer_in_TX]

44. He can do federal pardons but he cannot pardon himself or anyone else for crimes charged in state courts

States need to get busy with investigating crimes committed in their jurisdiction by Trump or any of his administration – and proceed to charging the criminals.

Trump v. United States Didn't Make the President Above the Law. Nothing Ever Has. by Christopher Armitage

Most Americans have come to believe that Donald Trump is effectively above the law because he is the sitting president. Not because they want him to be, but because they think the Supreme Court made it that way. They point to Trump v. United States and say the Court gave him immunity; they point to impeachment and the 25th Amendment and say those are the only two remedies. They've concluded, reasonably but inaccurately that until Congress acts with a supermajority, nothing can touch him. They're wrong. And the people who benefit from that confusion have every reason to keep it going.

[snip…]

The dual sovereignty doctrine, which has been the law of this land since the founders wrote it into the architecture of the republic, gives every state independent authority to prosecute crimes committed within their borders; a presidential pardon cannot touch a state conviction. Congress doesn't have to act. No supermajority is required. If the president commits a crime, a prosecutor with jurisdiction can charge him, and that's how it has always worked.…

The founders weren't subtle about why they built it this way. They'd watched a king operate above the law, and they designed a system with two parallel sets of courts, two parallel sets of prosecutors, two parallel sets of criminal codes, and two parallel sets of criminal statutes specifically so no single actor could capture the whole machine. The dual sovereignty doctrine wasn't a legal technicality they left lying around; it was the design. States retain independent authority to prosecute crimes committed within their borders because the founders understood that the day would come when the federal government couldn't be trusted to police itself. That day has a name now. It's today.

The Minnesota county attorney for Minneapolis needs to do more than just CONSIDER filing charges for those who murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti. There's enough evidence in spite of the Trump regime's stonewalling and non-cooperation. As Armitage points out:

Every judge, every attorney general, every sheriff, every prosecutor who declines to investigate or charge documented criminal conduct because the man committing it is currently president has made a choice. They may not have said the words. But their actions have said them plainly: the president is above the law. That's the only conclusion their inaction supports.

[0rganism]

45. Such pardoned people called as prosecution witnesses might find it more difficult to plead the 5th...

... as, after all, they would be under no risk of self incrimination from crime(s) for which they've already been pardoned, eh Donnie-boy? Enjoy their risk-free testimony, you depraved sonofabitch.

[TalenaGor]

46. sounds like a confession

[Grokenstein]

47. That won't protect them from the public.

Maybe he should have promised them their own bunkers.