Biden is discussing using his pardon power to prevent possible future prosecutions with some of his top aides with the effort led by White House chief of staff Jeffrey Zients and White House counsel Ed Siskel, according to reports. Biden has faced pressure from Capitol Hill to shield targets of Trump from possible legal retribution before the Republican’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

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However, 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.

Three Democratic strategists close to the Biden White House told the Washington Examiner that conversations about preemptive pardons for Trump critics, from Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have “certainly” taken place but there was doubt that they would come to fruition. 

“Even with the threat Trump poses, I’d be surprised if the president issues preemptive pardons for any of Trump’s political enemies,” one senior Democratic strategist told the Washington Examiner. “That being said, I didn’t see the Hunter pardon coming, so I guess all bets are off.”

“Pardoning Hunter, who was set to be sentenced and already had a target painted on his back by MAGA, is one thing, but this?” questioned a second operative. “It just doesn’t really make sense.”

One veteran Democratic campaign aide suggested that “Biden’s more likely to pardon Trump as an olive branch moment for the country” than wipe away hypothetical charges that haven’t come to pass.

With six weeks left during his only term in office, Biden is weighing a flurry of requests for pardons and commutations, including those from Democrats to take blanket actions to reduce mass incarceration and release non-violent drug offenders from prison.

After Biden pardoned his son, despite repeatedly insisting he would not, Democrats and even some Republicans think the dam has broken. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), said Thursday he suspects pardons for Fauci as well as the president’s brother, James, and even Biden himself, to shield from GOP investigations into the family’s business dealings with Hunter.

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.”

Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, criticized the prospect of preemptive pardons, contending it would undercut the justice system and set an adverse precedent before Trump’s inauguration.

“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,” Bannon told the Washington Examiner.

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A second Democratic operative granted anonymity to speak candidly said pardoning Washington insiders instead of those already languishing in jail would send the wrong message.

“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?” the source 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.”

The person added: “Above all, people kind of want Joe Biden just to go away right now and can probably handle their own protection themselves.”

To that end, Schiff, who earned Trump’s ire during his tenure as House Intelligence Committee chairman during the federal Russia investigation, has similarly dismissed presumptive pardons. 

“I don’t think a preemptive pardon makes sense,” Schiff told NPR last month. “I think this is frankly so implausible as not to be worthy of much consideration. I would urge the president not to do that. I think it would seem defensive and unnecessary.”

Speculation with respect to the pardons coincides with last weekend’s pardon of the younger Biden and Trump’s naming of Patel as his presumptive FBI nominee, despite current FBI Director Christoper Wray’s 10-year term not expiring until 2027. Trump nominated Wray in 2017.

Although problems regarding Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have dominated headlines, Patel, a former Justice Department prosecutor who was chief of staff to Defense Secretary Christoper Miller, has also been criticized for his past statements concerning the president-elect’s detractors, including a list of 60 people who he claims in his 2023 book Government Gangsters are part of the so-called “deep state.”

“I understand that Patel thinks Republican political appointees Bill Barr, Pat Cipollone, Sarah Isgur, and Pat Philbin are part of the ‘deep state’ — and he wants to run the nation’s most important investigative agency?” a former DOJ official told the Washington Examiner. “I would enjoy watching him testify under oath, but I don’t think he’ll make it to a confirmation hearing.”

Patel, who was also deputy director of national intelligence during Trump’s first administration, previewed the posture he is likely to adopt as FBI director against Trump critics this week. His attorney threatened legal action against Olivia Troye, a onetime national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, after she claimed that Patel would “lie about intelligence” and “put the lives of Navy SEALs at risk” during Trump’s first term.

Troye has defended her statements but, like Schiff, has downplayed a preemptive pardon from Biden in part because pardons are akin to an admission of guilt. The Supreme Court case of Burdick v. United States defined the pardon framework, including that a pardon carries “an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.”

“It’s certainly something to consider,” Troye told CNN. “I guess my question is I have not done anything wrong. I know that, and I know that many of us who have just spoken the truth, all we’re doing is speaking the truth.”

One critic of Trump due to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol agreed the Patel letter is a “road map” for the next four years but was “conflicted” with respect to preemptive pardons.

“[Trump’s] going to put loyalists, people in positions that agree with him no matter what,” the source who asked to remain anonymous told the Washington Examiner. “Do we expect Donald Trump to follow the law — I don’t know. So, the people that did nothing wrong, they should still worry because does the law really matter when it comes to Donald Trump?”

“I don’t know — it’s so tough because there are no rules anymore for this s***,” he said.

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Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), a longtime Biden alley, is urging the president to ask soon to protect those at risk, including former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who served on the Jan. 6 House committee, and special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Trump in two federal cases that have since been dismissed.

“I’ve seen Kash Patel saying who he’s going after, and so why should we not believe them? And that’s what I said to the president’s staff: You all got to believe these people,” Clyburn told the New York Times.

“I think it will be less than an honorable thing to do to leave this office and not do what you can to protect the integrity of their decision-making, especially when they were carrying out these responsibilities as patriots to this country, doing the things that are necessary in pursuit of a more perfect union,” he added.

Asked to comment on the aforementioned potential pardons, a Trump transition advisor responded simply, “lol.”

Trump’s team is standing by Hegseth and Patel after the president-elect’s first choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, had to step aside amid a congressional investigation into sexual misconduct.

“Unlike Joe Biden, President Trump will not weaponize the justice system against his political opponents,” incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner.

Haisten Willis contributed to this report.