President Trump says he will issue preemptive pardons to protect administration staffers if Democrats follow through on threats to go after them after the midterms.
In a Breitbart News report on his New York Post interview with Miranda Devine, President Donald Trump made clear he would not leave his people exposed.
Democrats have spent months promising investigations, family probes, and even possible impeachments of cabinet secretaries if they reclaim the majority. Trump answered that talk with a simple readiness to act.
Devine pressed him on the threats, including talk of arresting Elon Musk and seizing factories or nationalizing SpaceX. Trump brushed off the bravado first, then drew a hard line on protection.
"They won’t, it’s talk. But if it is talk, we’ll have to protect them."
She asked directly whether he could issue preemptive pardons. Trump pointed straight at the last administration’s record.
"Well, that’s what Biden did. He gave everybody a pardon. I mean, you had the congressional committee, the unselect committee set up. It was a corrupt committee, they were all corrupt. He gave everybody a pardon."
Devine followed up: would he do the same? Trump did not hedge.
"I would if I needed to, sure."
When she asked if that covered everybody who worked for him, he went further and tied it to his own prior clemency actions.
"I would not even think about it. I’d do it. I did it for J6."
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said in July that a Democratic majority would investigate the Trump family for “corruption.” Months later, Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said Democrats would investigate and possibly impeach Trump’s cabinet secretaries if they won control.
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville recently claimed Democrats would “investigate the h*** out of” Trump’s so-called “corruption” after the midterms. The pattern is public, repeated, and timed to the election calendar that culminates Tuesday.
Trump’s willingness to move early matches earlier comments on shielding junior staff from partisan probes. He treats the pardon power as a shield against selective prosecution, not a favor factory.
Trump framed the option as matching what Joe Biden already did for allies tied to a congressional committee he called corrupt. That comparison sits at the center of his answer.
He has also shown he will use clemency in public and concrete ways, including onstage pardons tied to major energy projects. The tool is familiar to him.
Voters watching the midterms now see both the Democratic threats and the ready countermeasure in the same news cycle.
Trump’s Justice Department released an April report detailing how the Biden administration systematically targeted pro-life activists for FACE Act prosecutions, often at the behest of pro-abortion groups. A DOJ Task Force report likewise found the prior administration worked to punish Christians living out traditional beliefs.
Republican senators said in May that Biden’s DOJ buried newly released texts tied to possible Hunter Biden prostitution crimes. Those episodes sit alongside older reporting on the Biden family’s China deals.
A 2022 Breitbart account of Peter Schweizer’s book Red-Handed stated the Biden family scored $31 million from five China deals with individuals tied directly to the Chinese spy apparatus. Schweizer described the arrangement as elite capture that opened doors for Beijing.
Against that backdrop, Trump’s pledge reads as insurance against a repeat. He has already signaled openness to broad protection for White House officials, citing Biden’s own clemency spree as the model Democrats created.
Similar reporting captured him saying he would pardon officials before the term ends on the same rationale. The through-line is consistency: if the other side turns federal power into a political weapon, he will use lawful authority to blunt it.
He has applied clemency in other high-profile cases too, including a commutation that wiped out a heavy restitution order. The record shows a president comfortable exercising the power when he judges the equities demand it.
Trump’s interview answers leave little ambiguity. He calls the Democratic threats talk, yet refuses to gamble his staff’s freedom on that assessment. Preemptive pardons would short-circuit the cycle before subpoenas and impeachment talk consume the next Congress.
The New York Post conversation, aired as voters head to the polls, puts the choice in plain view: one party promises retribution, the other promises to shield the people who would be targeted.
Lawful clemency exists for moments when politics poisons prosecution. Trump just said he will use it.
