ICYMI: Trump Pardons Top Jan. 6 Conspirators

0:07You're listening to the 1A Podcast. I'm Jen White, and this is In Case You Missed It, where we bring you some of the week's most important conversations you might have missed. The longest government shutdown in history could come to an end in a matter of days. That's after eight Democratic senators voted with Republicans Monday night to approve a funding measure. The measure now heads to the House and later to the president's desk to be signed. But late Sunday, while most eyes were on the Senate's shutdown negotiations, the Trump administration was busy trying to rewrite the history of the 2020 election.

0:39Just before midnight, a Justice Department lawyer posted a list on X of dozens of people receiving presidential pardons, all of whom were accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Most are top allies and former aides of President Trump, including the president's former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who tried to overturn election results in key swing states and spread false claims of widespread voting machine fraud. What do these partons actually do? And how is the president using the Justice Department to shield people loyal to him from future legal consequences?

1:19Kyle Cheney joins us after the break to discuss all this and more. He's a senior legal affairs reporter for Politico. Stay with us. We'll be back with more in a moment.

1:33Kyle, welcome to the program. Good to be with you, Jen. So the list names 77 of Trump's allies and aides who played a key role in the president's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. We've named a few, but among those pardons, whose names stood out to you the most? Well, you did hit the highlights. I mean, Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff, Rudy Giuliani, those are the bold-faced names. Boris Epstein, a longtime advisor. A lot of people who participated in this sort of false elector aspect of that scheme, which was where they sent fraudulently signed documents claiming to be legitimate presidential electors.

2:06That made up dozens of the names on there. So it really was people who covered the gamut and who faced their own legal headwind, sometimes at the state level, sometimes in federal investigations that are no longer active. None of the people named in the document were charged with federal crimes and state charges, which many of these people are facing. They aren't covered by presidential pardons. So that makes this at least partially a symbolic act. But beyond the symbolism, what does a preemptive pardon actually do? Well, it would theoretically shield them if there were some in some distant time in a future administration effort to revive some of these investigations, although that seems doubtful.

2:46However, you know, they can use these, the act of this pardon in those state cases, not to say we've been pardoned from, you know, exposure in the states, but to at least lean on the justice system in those states to say, look, the president said that this is a non-crime. We should be protected. So maybe maybe we should drop these charges. Maybe that would be the right thing to do. I expect to see a lot of those motions pop up in state court in the near future. Justice Department Department Pardon Attorney Ed Martin shared the names of those pardoned on access was just before 11 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.

3:16And it was a reply to a post from May that said, quote, no MAGA left behind. How did these pardons fit with President Trump's broader use of the Justice Department this term? Well, it's pretty clear. I mean, he's been using the pardon power to essentially shield people, protect people who are firmly on his side of the political spectrum. You know, he, I think in the same, you know, act, the same wave of pardons that pardoned a former Tennessee House Speaker and other, you know, Republican-affiliated people who had faced criminal charges, federal charges. And so it just has been one after, you know, he recently released George Santos, the former Republican congressman from prison on a commutation.

3:58And that's just been the hallmark of the president's use of the pardon power. You know, the January 6th defendants who attacked the Capitol in his name all received pardons. You know, so it's pretty firmly, you know, political in terms of how he's exercised it. Now, Kyle, for years, Trump has claimed he has the power to pardon himself for federal crimes. This list, however, explicitly excludes Trump, arguably the most important person in the matter. Has that power ever been tested by a sitting president? It hasn't. And I mean, if you read this part, one of the striking things about it is, yes, there are 77 names, but it also covers – it's not limited to these names.

4:36It's anyone who had some sort of role advocating for overturning the election results, for pushing these alternate elector slates. And so that could theoretically include Trump himself, who orchestrated that entire effort. And so by excluding him explicitly from the pardon, they're saying we don't want that fight now. We don't think we need to necessarily pardon the president preemptively or for anything related to this effort. But even if we did, this is not the moment for us to test that theory because it could get challenged. That's the kind of thing that has never been resolved before. And again, just for clarity, what, if any, legal basis is the president drawing from to assert the power to pardon himself?

5:16There isn't really one, except that the presidential pardon power is extremely broad and has very few limits and checks. One of those limits could be the ability to pardon yourself, because in theory, that would give a president license to do virtually anything. And even beyond the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, what that envisioned, a self-pardon would essentially insulate a president from any consequences for any actions taken. And so there's a lot of belief that that couldn't be used that way, but it's never been done before. So let's go back to a previous pardon. In October, Trump pardoned Zhang Peng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.

5:53In 2023, Jow pleaded guilty to money laundering charges, but by November, the president seemed fuzzy on the details. Why did you pardon him? Okay, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that, and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. In 2025, his crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a$2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And then you pardoned CZ. How do you address the appearance of pay for play? Well, here's the thing. I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other. But he got a pardon. I can only tell you this.

6:33My sons are into it. I'm glad they are because it's probably a great industry crypto. I think it's good. You know, they're running a business. They're not in government. That was President Trump speaking with CBS's Nora O'Donnell on 60 Minutes last week. Kyle, what do you see as the through line between Trump's pardons? whether we're talking about a billionaire crypto executive he says he doesn't really know, or some of his closest allies who've acted on his behalf to try to overturn election results? I mean, look, it's politics. It's the through line. It's business interests. It's things that are personal to him.

7:08And I think that has been true across the board with who he's decided to exercise clemency for. Here he says, well, I didn't know the guy. My sons are in that industry. So So there's still a personal connection there. And, you know, I think it's sort of striking to hear him say, I don't really know the guy. People pointed out, you know, that was he criticized Joe Biden for signing pardons that he claimed that Biden didn't have any awareness of the details about. Well, here he is saying saying essentially the same thing. And the pardon power is such an extraordinary act of, you know, presidential authority, almost unchallengeable to use that for someone.

7:44You say, oh, I didn't really know anything about that case, especially when there's a business connection there. And, you know, the president is clearly interested in crypto and spreading his own personal empire in that direction, that it was a really remarkable thing to say. We got this question from Nicholas who asks, is there a limit on who can be pardoned by the president? No. I mean, the answer essentially is no. It's one of the few virtually unchallengeable powers of the president now. Now, the Supreme Court's immunity ruling may make this difficult, but if a president were to theoretically pardon someone as part of a bribe situation or something that pointed to another sort of federal crime, potentially that could be investigated.

8:27I think Bill Clinton's pardons were investigated for something similar, although it would be very difficult to bring a case against, particularly against a president or former president, because of how insulated the pardon power is from any sort of challenge. Well, we mentioned state charges and the presidential pardon power does not extend to charges at the state level. How likely is it, do you think, that states might step back from prosecuting some of the people on this list? You know, we've already heard from the Arizona attorney general who said, this is not going to have any influence on my decision of whether to maintain the case against these actors in 2020.

9:05Now, her case is facing other headwinds that have nothing to do with the pardons, But I think it's more of a pressure tactic is to say, look, we we here in the White House view these cases as illegitimate. And so so we think those state courts should adopt our view, but they really can't force anything. And so, you know, unless a state actor, a prosecutor says, you know, we'll change our minds because of the president's decision, which I don't see happening. I don't think it will have any bearing. Cal, I think a big picture question is why now? Why is the president, again, going back to things that happened in 2020 when it seems he evaded any serious legal consequences for the events of January 6th?

9:47You know, I think there's a few reasons. One is very practical. There are some key inflection points in some of these state cases facing his allies that are coming up that maybe these pardons could influence. But the second thing is so much of his first year has been about trying to erase the stain of that moment in his political career, his defeat in 2020. He still wants to convince the world that he didn't really lose, even though he did. And part of that is these criminal cases that dogged him for his entire post-presidency or I guess the interregnum between his terms. He wants that all to – the entire narrative to be flipped on its head.

10:23He's going to have to go after the people who went after him and convincing people somehow that this was all a witch hunt against him is the key predicate for then going after the people who went after him. So what are you watching for next? So the question is, who will claim that this pardon applies to them? This is so broad. Almost anybody who acted on his behalf could say, I'm covered by this pardon. Even Ed Martin, the guy who issued it, was someone who acted in this capacity in 2020. So I'm curious to see who comes up and raises their hand and says, I just got clemency too. Well, that's Kyle Cheney, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico.

11:02Kyle, thanks for your time. Thanks for having me. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Jen White. Thanks for listening, and let's talk more soon. This is 1A.