The Volokh Conspiracy

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President Trump Comments on President Biden's Pardons: "An Unbelievable Precedent.

"Well I guess now I have precedent to do it, but I don't want to do it..."

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Shortly after the inauguration, I observed that President Biden and his supporters would soon come to regret the Eleventh Hour pardons.

Monday evening, around 8:20 p.m., President Trump delivered these remarks about the pardons in the Oval Office (my transcription):

Trump: I was a little bit surprised he did it. It makes them look guilty. He will have to live with that. Now with that being said, it sets an unbelievable precedent, it creates poor precedent. But the precedent is unbelievable. Now maybe every president who leaves office they are going to pardon every person they ever met so they don't have some lunatic like deranged Jack Smith, whose a total lunatic by the way, not a smart guy, he's a dummy, but we beat the hell out of him. And I helped my reputation.

Question: Do you think you are going to have to do the same thing at the end of this

Trump: Well I guess now I have precedent to do it, but I don't want to do it, it makes you look very guilty. It makes Biden look very bad, very weak, very guilty.

What goes around comes around.