Trump Tells TIME He'd Consider Preemptive Pardons for His Own Administration

President Donald Trump said he'd be open to issuing preemptive pardons for members of his own administration before his term ends, according to an interview published by TIME magazine and reported by ABC News and Yahoo News on October 1.

Asked whether he was "considering pardoning members of your administration prior to the end of your term," Trump answered plainly: "Yeah, sure, I'd do that."

He pointed to former President Joe Biden as the reason. Biden issued blanket pardons to family members and administration staff before leaving office, citing concern they would be politically targeted once he was gone, Trump noted, adding that Biden "gave pardons to everyone."

Bloomberg's Magan Crane reported the broader political context: Trump has said that if Democrats win control of the House or Senate, lawmakers would use oversight powers to go after his administration. A preemptive pardon would shield officials from prosecution regardless of what future investigators turn up.

A Pardon Power Already in Heavy Use

This isn't a hypothetical shift in how Trump uses the pardon power. It's an extension of how he's already using it.

Ed Martin, who served as the administration's pardon attorney for more than a year before recently departing, told the Daily Wire he has helped Trump issue more than 1,500 pardons during this term, a volume and pace Martin says breaks from how most presidents operate. "Most presidents wait until the end of their term," Martin said, granting clemency "in the dark of night in December or January as they're leaving office." Trump, he said, has used the power continuously throughout his term instead.

That volume is now drawing scrutiny. CBS's "60 Minutes" is set to air a segment called "The Pardon Economy" this Sunday, billed as a hidden-camera investigation into lobbyists who allegedly broker pardon access for a price, according to the Daily Wire. The teaser features rapper Boosie Badazz, who claims lobbyists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman promised to secure him a Trump pardon for $600,000 while he faced drug and firearms charges. A contract reviewed by the New York Times reportedly let Boosie reclaim half the money if no pardon materialized. Wohl and Burkman dispute this, saying the rapper never signed it.

Martin did not comment on the pay-for-play allegations specifically but confirmed to the Daily Wire that he sat for a lengthy interview with correspondent Lesley Stahl for the segment, saying he felt he understood "what President Trump thinks" on clemency and wanted to help explain it.

The Cronyism Critique

The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board has taken a sharper line, calling Trump's pardon practice a "cottage industry" that frees "donors and business allies" while the Justice Department, in the board's framing, pursues perceived political enemies including former FBI Director James Comey, his daughter Maurene, E. Jean Carroll, former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Fed Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. The board also noted Trump pardoned allies at the end of his first term, including Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone.

This reflects the Inquirer's editorial judgment, not an independently adjudicated finding. Several of the cases it cites remain contested in courts or involve civil litigation rather than DOJ prosecution. But the underlying question the board raises is a fair one: does a pardon power used this aggressively, in both directions, start to look like a tool for rewarding loyalty and punishing dissent rather than correcting injustice?

The strongest defense of Trump's position doesn't require accepting that framing. Biden's own blanket pardons for family members and staff, issued explicitly to head off future political prosecutions, set a real precedent for preemptive clemency as a defensive tool, not just a corrective one. If that's now an accepted use of presidential power, Trump pointing to it as justification isn't hypocrisy, it's consistency with the norm Biden established.

What's unresolved is specific. Trump hasn't named which officials he'd consider pardoning, or when such pardons might be issued. And "60 Minutes" hasn't yet aired what its hidden cameras actually captured beyond the Boosie Badazz allegations and Wohl and Burkman's shared denial. Both threads, the preemptive-pardon question and the pardon-brokering allegations, are likely to collide in public scrutiny once the segment airs Sunday.