President Donald Trump told reporters Saturday that he would be allowed to pardon officials who serve in his administration, hours after The Washington Sun reported that White House attorneys are weighing mass pardons for junior staffers.
Asked whether he was considering pardons to shield junior administration officials, Trump answered, “I would be allowed to,” according to video of the exchange posted on X. He then turned to his assistant, Margo Martin, who was standing nearby, and said, “Margo, you’re not going to have to worry about it,” according to the same video.
Q: Are you considering pardoning junior administration officials to shield them?
Trump: I would be allowed to. Margo, you’re not going to have to worry about it. pic.twitter.com/wxWUaiISEz
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 24, 2026
Trump framed the issue as protection against the kind of legal battles his allies faced in recent years. “It would be very unfair to go through what we went through for four years with the corrupt weaponization” that took place, Trump said, according to a clip posted by the White House’s Rapid Response account. “I certainly don’t want to see innocent people go through hell and lose all their money,” he added in the same clip.
What the report says
The Washington Sun reported Saturday morning that White House attorneys are evaluating whether to issue mass pardons to junior staffers, citing two sources familiar with the conversations. According to the Sun, one source said a pardon covering all junior administration personnel is viewed as unlikely, but that the president could issue blanket pardons for employees involved in particular policy areas, such as deportations, war or trade.
The Sun reported that conservative groups including the Heritage Foundation and American Moment have pressed the White House counsel’s office either to prepare pardons or to set up funding for the legal fees needed to defend junior staffers from criminal and congressional probes or lawsuits. The White House and the Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to the Sun’s requests for comment, the outlet reported.
The Slotkin factor
According to the Sun, those efforts intensified after Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said earlier this month that congressional investigations into Trump officials should make young Republicans think twice before joining the administration in its final two years.
“After listening to Elissa Slotkin threatening to go after young people who joined the Trump administration, President Trump should issue very broad preemptive pardons for anyone who worked for him or in his orbit,” Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, told the Sun.
Nick Solheim, chief executive of American Moment, declined to discuss private conversations but told the Sun that “the left will do everything in its power to hunt down conservatives who are implementing the president’s agenda.”
The Biden precedent
Trump has made the case before. “I don’t want to see people that work for me go through years of nonsense, hire lawyers and everything else, all for nothing,” Trump said in an interview earlier this month, according to the Sun.
The debate follows former President Joe Biden’s use of preemptive pardons on his way out of office, a precedent even some critics of the idea acknowledge.
Critics say the idea goes too far. Mark Osler, a clemency expert at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, told the Sun that widespread pardons for political appointees would be “a new development in American history,” while also saying that “the Biden administration did this and blazed the trail.”
No pardons for junior staff have been announced, and the White House has not said whether any decision has been made.
Sources
- The Washington Sun: White House Is Weighing Mass Pardons for Junior Staff
- DNYUZ: Trump pardon talk turns serious as his lawyers study blanket clemency
- Rapid Response 47 on X (video)
- Video of Trump’s exchange with reporters on X
Sources cited
Sources
- Original post: Acyn (@Acyn) on X, Oct 24, 2026
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