White House attorneys are examining whether President Donald Trump should pardon junior members of his administration, two sources familiar with the discussions told the Washington Sun.
The talks follow comments from Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, that The Chicago Thinker captured on video earlier this month, the sources said.
On that recording, Slotkin named the targets she wants investigators to pursue.
She said, “I want to look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president but on the people who enabled him.”
She then turned to recent graduates.
“I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? That sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.’”
Slotkin closed with the response she hopes to hear from them.
“I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.’ I want that deterrence message sent.”
One of the sources told the Sun that officials view a pardon covering every junior administration employee as unlikely.
That source said the president could still sign blanket pardons for staffers tied to specific policy areas, and named trade, war and deportations.
Conservative groups have already started lobbying.
The Heritage Foundation and American Movement, among other organizations, have urged the White House to prepare pardons, the sources said.
Those groups also want the administration to arrange legal funding. According to the sources, the money would defend junior staffers against criminal investigations, congressional probes and lawsuits.
Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, said he plans to press the White House to act.
Davis laid out his own proposal for the Sun.
He said, “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.”
Davis’s proposal covers anyone who worked for the president or in his orbit. That group is larger than the junior staff the White House attorneys are discussing.
Trump issued sweeping pardons on his first day back in office to roughly 1,500 people arrested in connection with the January 6, 2021, events at the Capitol.
In his first term, he signed fewer than 250 pardons and commutations.
The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Trump has repeatedly raised pardons with aides, particularly when staffers suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over their decisions.
According to the Journal, Trump told aides in a recent meeting: “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval.”
The Journal’s sources said they knew of no specific pardons offered to specific people for specific acts.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the report a joke but insisted the president’s pardon power is absolute.
The Journal also reported that Trump weighed pardoning White House officials at the end of his first term, after the January 6 attack, but did not do so.
It reported that his aides have worried about losing control of the House of Representatives to Democrats in the November elections.
In June, a White House official told the Washington Examiner that Trump is the decision-maker on presidential pardons.
The sources told the Washington Sun that White House attorneys are still weighing the move.
