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A new report from The Wall Street Journal alleged that President Trump jested about pardoning administration officials before leaving office in 2029, highlighting the age-old Constitutional practice of presidential clemency and its role in the White House.
According to the outlet, the president reportedly joked that he would “pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval” before departing in three years.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not deny the president’s comments, telling the outlet simply that the newspaper “should learn to take a joke.”
Such a potential move would not be unusual, as presidential pardons are often issued in the twilight hours of an administration.
Before departing the Oval Office in 2025, for example, then-President Joe Biden granted pardons for his three siblings, his son, Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, to name a few.
And, according to the Pew Research Center, Biden issued more pardons than any president in history, granting 4,245 acts of clemency in his single four-year term, eclipsing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 3,796.
As far as clemency grants, President Trump has been sparing, with just 238 issued in his first term, per Pew’s data. His second term has clocked in at a much higher number, starting with a mass slate of pardons for January 6 protestors.
After taking office again in 2025, President Donald Trump declared Biden’s pardons were “null, void, and of no further force or effect,” pointing to a possible use of an “autopen” on such documents, which the president argues invalidates these documents.
The topic of the autopen has become such a running joke with President Trump that, on the White House Presidential Wall of Fame, he replaced Biden’s photo with a picture of an autopen.