This could help members of the Trump administration to escape political persecution in the future. Insiders within the White House reportedly told the Wall Street Journal that President Trump plans to grant sweeping pardons to his entire administration. Trump reportedly told White House advisers that he plans to pardon anyone who was within 200 ft of the Oval Office. The Wall Street Journal broke the story: President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments. “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting to laughs, according to people with knowledge of the comments. That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet. In one conversation with advisers in the dining room next to the Oval Office last year, Trump said he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he left office, some of the people said. The people said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts. The unconditional power to pardon is one of the most sweeping powers offered to the presidency. This term, Trump has wielded clemency far differently than any other president, dispensing some 1,600 grants to date. Many have gone to allies and donors, or those who had hired them, coming after a social pull-aside or a round of golf. Some have received bipartisan criticism, including one to a crypto billionaire whose company boosted Trump’s own digital-currency company, and another to a former Honduran president convicted of conspiring with cartels to ship cocaine to the U.S. In Trump’s first term, he signed fewer than 250 pardons and commutations. The president has repeatedly raised the specter of pardons with White House aides and other administration officials, particularly when staff have suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over decisions, people familiar with the comments said. Trump is known to joke about matters that he later seriously pursues, and the frequent references have led some aides to believe he is serious about the pardons, too. Trump aides have worried about losing control of the House of Representatives to Democrats in the November elections. Democrats have said they might investigate the president for a range of issues, including his control over the Justice Department, alleged malfeasance at the Department of Homeland Security and the president’s pardons themselves. The president has discussed how to thwart those potential inquiries, advisers said. The Justice Department ultimately would make the decision on whether to charge someone for not adhering to a congressional subpoena. Trump promising mass pardons to his staff before leaving office is smart leadership, not scandal. Presidents have wide pardon power for a reason, to correct injustices and protect loyal public servants from weaponized lawfare. After years of Biden era DOJ targeting Trump allies… pic.twitter.com/JclpN2r0vP — techmudder (@techmudder) April 10, 2026 Democrats can’t say much about Trump’s potential move. Considering Biden made mass pardons with an auto-pen before leaving office. NPR reported more on the controversy surrounding Biden’s “autopen” pardons: In a late-night Truth Social post, Trump said his predecessor’s preemptive pardons of members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection are “hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OF EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.” The notion that Biden relied on the autopen to sign important documents was heavily perpetuated by the Oversight Project, an arm of the Heritage Foundation that played a key role in promoting false claims about noncitizen voting last year. Trump’s rhetoric fans the flames of conspiracies about Biden not really being in charge during his presidency. While concerns about Biden’s fitness for office forced him to call off his reelection campaign, the right has taken that to an extreme. Biden pardons Fauci, Milley and members of Jan. 6 panel “In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!” Trump wrote of the pardons. However, there is no evidence that is the case. It is not clear whether Biden actually used an autopen to sign the documents in question. And even if he did, legal experts say it’s not clear the pardons could be rescinded — for that or any other reason. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which grants presidents broad clemency powers, says the pardon only needs to be “accepted by its subject” to take effect — and does not mention anything about reversing them after the fact.