Former President Bill Clinton implied Wednesday he was looking forward to a potential preemptive pardon for Hillary Clinton during an interview on ABC.
Just hours later on Thursday, Biden began pardoning hundreds of prisoners in the largest act of clemency in modern history.
Clinton said he was also open to discussing his wife’s pardon with President Joe Biden before President-elect Trump’s second inauguration in January.
The former 42nd president said it would be a “fool’s errand” to try and lock up Hillary, but admitted that it’s possible for Trump’s administration.
“If Kash Patel is determined to make one up, he could do it, but I think if President Biden wanted to talk to me about that, I will talk to him about it,” Clinton said on ABC’s “The View,” referring to Trump’s FBI director nominee.
Clinton quickly tempered his response, and admitted to his own controversial pardoning history.
“I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power,” he said. “I think it’s too — it’s a very personal thing, but it is — I hope [Trump] won’t do that.”
The discussion comes as Biden considers blanket pardons for various Trump critics, even those not charged with crimes, to spare them potential legal fees and harassment. Trump has vowed to investigate and prosecute potential crimes by former Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen. Adam Smith, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and special counsel Jack Smith, among others.
Clinton defended his wife against the email server controversy that sparked “Lock her up” chants at Trump rallies in 2016.
“They’ve got a problem with her because first, she didn’t do anything wrong. Second, she followed the rules exactly as they were written. Third, Trump’s State Department found that Hillary sent and received exactly zero classified emails on her personal device,” he said, despite showing interest in a pardon. “It was a made-up phony story.”
The pardon discussions follow Biden’s very controversial decision to pardon his son Hunter. For years the Biden administration denied that Hunter will be pardoned, but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “circumstances have changed” and acknowledged that more pardons are coming.
On Thursday morning, Biden commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people released from prison early and given home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also pardoned nearly 40 others convicted of nonviolent crimes– the largest single-day act of pardoning in modern American history.
Trump’s nominee Patel has compiled a list of dozens of “deep state” enemies, including current National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray.
On Sunday, Trump declared, “Everybody on that committee… for what they did, yeah, honestly, they should go to jail,” referring to the January 6th investigation members.
“Trump, you know, most of us get out of this world ahead of where we’d get if all we got was simple justice. And so it’s normally a fool’s errand to spend a lot of time trying to get even,” Clinton said on The View.
Earlier this month, Biden said his son was unfairly targeted over federal gun crimes, on which Hunter pleaded guilty.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.”