A ex-federal prosecutor is warning that President Donald Trump is "highly likely" to use presidential pardons to protect himself and his allies from criminal charges once he leaves the White House.
Glenn Kirschner, founder of the Justice Matters podcast, told the The Daily Beast that Trump is terrified that multiple of his actions leave him open to being hammered by legal authorities as soon as he leaves the White House.
He added that Democrats and those who oppose Trump have to be ready for a fight to make sure he faces justice.
"We have to go into court, and we have to fight corruptly delivered pardons," Kirschner said.
He cited former Attorney General Bill Barr's congressional testimony regarding the limits of presidential pardon power. According to Kirschner, "Even Bill Barr testified before Congress that if Donald Trump delivered a pardon to somebody who was covering up evidence of wrongdoing by Donald Trump — put another way, using the pardon to perhaps curry favor with or buy the silence of somebody who could implicate him — Bill Barr said that would be improper. That would be a crime. That would be an impermissible use of the pardon power."
Potential pardon recipients could include Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who faces allegations she perjured herself during Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. The DHS denied these claims, stating: "Any claim that Secretary Noem committed perjury is categorically false."
Attorney General Pam Bondi could also receive clemency given her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. A DOJ official characterized those concerns as "a tired narrative."
Kirschner emphasized the constitutional stakes, stating, "What we have to do is take these things into court and fight them because it's the right and righteous thing to do. And if the courts — trial court, court of appeals, and the Supreme Court—all say no, a president can buy a co-conspirator's silence by delivering a presidential pardon, then we continue to move in the direction of the end of our republic. Because that is not what the pardon power ought to be able to do."
Trump previously criticized Biden's pardons handed out days before the end of his presidency, declaring that all of his predecessor's clemency decisions were "null, void, and of no further force or effect" because Biden used an autopen signature. Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Anyone receiving 'Pardons,' 'Commutations,' or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect."
Constitutional experts dispute Trump's authority to do that. Stanford law professor Bernadette Meyler stated, "The Constitution doesn't even require that the pardon be written, so the idea that the signature is by autopen rather than by handwritten signature seems not relevant to the constitutionality because Article II just says that the President has the power to pardon."
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed Kirschner's analysis, telling the Daily Beast, "Anything said on the Daily Beast podcast is equivalent to screaming into the void. No one listens to this Trump Derangement Syndrome therapy session."