Former President Donald Trump nearly presented a blanket pardon to Capitol attackers from Jan. 6 before he left office later that month.
According to Politico, two people with direct knowledge revealed that in the weeks before he was kicked out of the White House, he called three times, asking an adviser about the idea.
"Do you think I should pardon them? Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you think I have the power to do it?" Trump said to the adviser.
In another call to an adviser, Trump asked several questions about how the attackers could be charged and what he could do to issue a uniform pardon to protect them.
"Is it everybody that had a Trump sign or everybody who walked into the Capitol?" was Trump's question. He wondered who could be pardoned.
“He said, 'Some people think I should pardon them.' He thought if he could do it, these people would never have to testify or be deposed," the adviser recalled Trump saying.
The conversation has resurfaced this week after Trump told a Saturday rally crowd in Texas that if he's reelected in 2024 that he "might" pardon the insurrectionists. At least one lawyer for Jan. 6 attackers said that the former president is putting his finger on the scales of justice. By promising a pardon, there is less of an incentive to cooperate with prosecutors.
Members of the House Select Committee on the Capitol attack have called Trump's Saturday comments an example of "witness tampering."
Read the full report at Politico.
IN OTHER NEWS: Sparks fly on Fox News as guest accuses the network of disparaging Black women to attack Biden