Trump reveals he’ll use preemptive pardons to protect staff, allies if Dems take Congress

I could use a pardon myself. I don't want the FBI coming around and threatening my sources. They turn on me in a NY second.

Trump reveals he’ll use preemptive pardons to protect staff, allies if Dems take Congress

By Thomas English, NY Post

Published Nov. 2, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ET

President Trump revealed he’s willing to issue sweeping preemptive pardons to everyone who worked in his administration if Democrats follow through on threats to prosecute them.

“I would if I needed to. Sure,” Trump told The Post’s Miranda Devine in a “Pod Force One” interview.

Asked whether that applied to everyone who’d worked for him, the president reaffirmed.

“I’d do it,” he said. “I did it for J6.”

He pointed to former President Joe Biden, who used his final hours in the Oval Office to pardon Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, the members and staff on the House Jan. 6 committee and a handful of his own relatives — including his troubled son Hunter.

“That’s what Biden did. He gave everybody a pardon,” Trump said.

He dismissed the Jan. 6 panel as “the unselect committee” and “a corrupt committee.”

Last month, Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-Mich.) said at a University of Chicago event that a Democratic majority should prosecute “signature cases” against “the people who enable” Trump.

The goal, she said, is to make young conservatives think twice about taking jobs with the Trump administration.

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“I want that deterrence message sent,” Slotkin said.

Slotkin was more specific in undercover footage Townhall recorded Thursday. She said each committee would pursue its own cases to “hold people accountable” starting in January.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the likely next Judiciary chairman if Democrats flip the House, promised to ferret out what he calls the administration’s “systemic corruption.”

Some on the left want to go even further.

Robert Reich, the 4-foot-11-inch former labor secretary, urged Democrats to lay the “groundwork” for nationalizing SpaceX. Others have suggested that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers — like Edward Coristine, aka “Big Balls” — should be targeted.

When Devine broached that Trump — including the idea of arresting Elon Musk, the world’s richest man — he was unfazed.

“It won’t happen. It’s talk,” he said. “But if it is talk, we’ll have to protect them.”

But pardons can only shield staffers so much — they cover only federal crimes, and offer no protection from state prosecutions, civil suits or impeachment.

Asked whether he himself was in Democrats’ crosshairs, Trump was less confident.

“Well, I don’t know about me,” he said.

Polls show Democrats are favored to flip the House. Trump called the polls “rigged” and cited the size of his rally crowds — suggesting Republicans will do better than they are expected to.

“We’ll know on Tuesday night,” he said.