by Jason Cohen
Democratic South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn disclosed on Thursday that he has urged President Joe Biden’s staff to get him to issue a “preemptive” pardon for President-elect Donald Trump.
Clyburn, who helped save Biden in the 2020 primary with an endorsement, is one of several prominent Democrats to suggest that the president should pardon Trump following his pardon of his son Hunter on Sunday. The South Carolina representative, on NewsNation’s “The Hill,” said that while he has not yet spoken to Biden himself about the matter, he told the president’s staff that he should weigh issuing multiple “preemptive pardons,” including for Trump.
“I have not urged the president directly, but I did have that discussion with the members of his staff that I thought he ought to do that,” Clyburn said. “I think we need to clear the air in this country … I think that we are trying to run a government on behalf of all the people of this country, and if we spend all of our time going forward pursuing Trump or Trump pursuing [Former Wyoming Republican Rep.] Liz Cheney, [special counsel] Jack Smith, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, that is what we need to get off the table.”
Co-hosts of the popular left-wing “Pod Save America” podcast also floated the idea of Biden pardoning figures like Cheney and Fauci in the wake of the president pardoning his son.
“And so, I’ve asked the president’s people to consider preemptive pardons for all those people, get it off the table. Get it off the table, because I know Donald Trump and I think the country knows Donald Trump,” Clyburn continued. “And as soon as he gets to the point where he can get the credit for it, he’ll do it. And so I asked the president to move forward doing this.”
Clyburn added that Biden’s staff listened to his suggestion and told him they would pass it along to Biden.
“And so I’m waiting to hear what the president’s response might be,” he said.
NewsNation host Chris Cuomo and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith on Monday also called on Biden to pardon Trump.
“Enough’s enough. You know what? You’re the Democrats, you lost the election. You got your butt whipped,” Smith told Cuomo in response to his assertion that Biden should pardon Trump. “You couldn’t prevent him from going back to the White House. You know, more than a dozen cases have been dropped against him. The cases that have been ruled against him, he’s going to appeal, and he’ll probably get off from having to deal with all of that. It’s time to move forward.”
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Jason Cohen is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
