Exclusive: President Biden says he urged President-elect Trump not to 'settle scores'
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden told USA TODAY he hasn’t decided whether to preemptively offer pardons to people such as former Rep. Liz Cheney or disease expert Anthony Fauci to protect them from potential investigations by President-elect Donald Trump.
But Biden said he urged Trump not to target people when they met in the Oval Office on Nov. 13.
"I tried to make it clear that there was no need and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores," Biden told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview Sunday.
How did Trump respond? "Well, he didn't. But he didn't say, 'No, I'm going to...'" Biden said. "He didn't reinforce it. He just basically listened."
The reason Biden is considering pardons is because of Trump’s repeated threats to investigate people who investigated him or who he feels thwarted his priorities during his first administration.
Trump, who was indicted twice on federal charges, which were dropped after he won the election, has threatened to throw Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and special counsel Jack Smith in jail.
Trump couldn't summarily imprison his targets, but his choices to lead the Justice Department and the FBI have talked about investigating his political rivals, which carried the threat of indictment and prosecution.
Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, has said “the Department of Justice, the prosecutors, will be prosecuted – the bad ones.” His pick to lead the FBI, former intelligence official Kash Patel, has threatened to “find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media.”
Trump has told NBC News that everyone who served on the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, which includes Cheney, R-Wyo., and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., should "go to jail.”
Trump has called Schiff, who led the first impeachment of Trump as a House member and who served on the Jan. 6 committee, as “the enemy within.”
Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was a frequent target of Republican lawmakers over the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump has said he overrode Fauci while he was president.
Cheney has already blasted Trump for being subject to a potential federal investigation. She called the allegations “a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth.”
“No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously,” Cheney said.
Schiff has said blanket pardons for unspecified crimes would set a bad precedent.
Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, the country’s second-highest civilian award, to Cheney and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the leaders of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack.
In the USA TODAY interview, Biden said any decision on pardons before leaving office Jan. 20 would depend on what signals Trump gives about his intensions.
"Well, a little bit of it depends on who he puts in what positions," Biden said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden mulls pardons after urging Trump not to 'settle scores'