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  "path": "/post/208967/trump-promises-pardon-everybody",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-10T20:22:24.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Republicans",
    "Republican Party",
    "United States",
    "Donald Trump",
    "Pardons",
    "same move",
    "reported",
    "declared",
    "Juan Orlando Hernández",
    "Ross Ulbricht"
  ],
  "textContent": "President Trump has already promised presidential pardons to his staff, just barely over a year into his second term. This is the same move that Trump criticized former President Biden for at the end of his four-year term.\n\n_The Wall Street Journal_ has reported that Trump told staff in a private meeting that he’d “pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval.” Another person told the _Journal_ that the president said he’d pardon anyone who came within 10 feet. In fact, White House aides reported that Trump makes the claim quite often in meetings.\n\nThe White House claims that he’s obviously joking.\n\n“The Wall Street Journal should learn to take a joke, however, the President’s pardon power is absolute,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.\n\nBiden pardoned several family members and top officials targeted by Republicans, like his son Hunter and former NIH head Anthony Fauci, before leaving office. Last year, Trump declared all of Biden’s pardons “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” an accusation that has little effect on the legitimacy of the pardons, which are still valid.\n\nTrump has already pardoned a cadre of questionable characters, including former Honduran President and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández, dark web drug dealer Ross Ulbricht, Texas Representative and fraudster Henry Cuellar, and nearly every single convicted January 6 rioter, among others.",
  "title": "Trump Promises to Pardon Everybody Before He Leaves Office"
}