Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich joined a league of others slamming the Biden White House’s preemptive pardon idea, asserting such pardons inherently imply guilt.
“You’re assuming a presumption of guilt. Why would somebody who has not been found guilty of anything want to be pardoned, which implies that they were guilty?” Gingrich asked FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Tuesday.
“I think this whole idea of a preemptive pardon is unconstitutional and, frankly, is the sort of thing people dream up when they feel too liberated by marijuana, are sitting around late at night talking to each other, and they see the smoke and the haze confuses their brain. You can’t have a preemptive pardon. The person is not even guilty of anything.”
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Politico reported earlier this month that White House counsel Ed Siskel is arranging discussions with several other senior Biden aides about potential pardons for prominent Trump critics like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.
The report also stated that people familiar with the deliberations said Biden himself had “not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet.”
Some Democrats have bucked up against the idea, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen.-elect Schiff, D-Calif., himself.
“I am not a fan of these [preemptive pardons],” Klobuchar said. “I didn’t like the pardon of the president’s son. I didn’t think that that was prudent. But I also am very concerned about this idea of the preemptive pardons.”
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Schiff told the Los Angeles Times, “I don’t want to see a precedent where you have presidents, as they leave office, issuing blanket pardons to members of their party or members of their administration.”
He went on to call the pardons “completely unnecessary.”
Biden caught flak from many, including some members of his own party, for granting a sweeping pardon to his son Hunter on Dec. 1.
Gingrich said he believes the pardon will “set the stage” for President-elect Donald Trump to pardon all the Jan. 6 protesters imprisoned “on the very first day.”
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
