President Donald Trump was expected to spend his last full day in office issuing a flurry of pardons and bidding farewell to the American public from a near-deserted White House and surrounded by an extraordinary security presence outside.
In one of his final acts as president, Trump was expected to grant clemency to as many as 100 people, according to two people briefed on the plans. The list of pardons and commutations is expected to include names unfamiliar to the American public — regular people who have spent years languishing in prison — as well as politically-connected friends and allies like those he’s pardoned in the past.
Trump also has been using his final days in office to issue steady a stream of executive orders as he tries to lock in initiatives that President-elect Joe Biden is likely to ignore. Trump has also recorded a video offering a final message to the American people before a farewell event at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday morning.
Aides had urged Trump to spend his final days in office participating in a series of legacy-burnishing events — speeches highlighting his administration’s efforts to lower taxes, scale back federal regulations and normalize relations in the Middle East.
But Trump, who remains consumed with anger and grievance over his election loss, refused and has not been seen in public since last week, when he traveled to Texas for one last photo opportunity at the border wall he pushed so adamantly throughout his presidency. In the end, he spent less than 45 minutes on the ground there and spoke just 21 minutes.
Trump has also refused to take part in any of the symbolic passing-of-the-torch traditions that have been the capstones of the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next. He is boycotting Biden’s inauguration, passed on inviting the Bidens to the White House for a get-to-know-you meeting. And it remains unclear whether he will write Biden a personal welcome letter, like the one he received from former President Obama when he moved in.
Denied his Twitter bullhorn and with little else planned, Trump did participate in multiple meetings over the long weekend to discuss pending clemency actions, according to a White House official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because the action had yet to be made public.
Trump was personally involved in the effort to sift through requests, mostly from first-time drug offenders sentenced to life, rejecting some applications and greenlighting others, according to one of the people involved in the effort. Also playing a key role has been the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who personally met with advocates, reviewed cases and brought them to the Department of Justice and pardon attorney.
Jessica Jackson, a lawyer and criminal justice advocate who has been working with the administration, said that she came to Ivanka Trump with the case of Darrell Frazier, who has served more than 29 years of a life sentence with no parole for his role in a drug conspiracy. While incarcerated, he founded a non-profit foundation in Tennessee that teaches tennis to 100-200 kids a week.
“I heard his story and brought it to Ivanka," said Jackson. “Once she heard the story, she took it to the DOJ, she took it to the pardon attorney."
Trump had been expected to move forward with additional pardons and commutations earlier this month, but discussions were put on hold after the insurrection at the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters incited by the president's fiery and baseless election challenges. That threw an already paralyzed White House into even further chaos. Trump has since been impeached for a second time.
A long list of staffers have already packed their offices and departed the White House, leaving the West Wing deserted — a warren of empty offices and bare walls — surrounded by an unprecedented security apparatus with National Guard troops, military vehicles and checkpoints aimed at staving off further violence.
Moving trucks were spotted in Florida on Monday arriving at Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club.
It remains unclear whether Trump will pardon Steve Bannon, his former top strategist, or offer pre-emptive reprieves to his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, his adult children and or even himself — uncharted legal territory.
Bannon has been charged with duping thousands of investors who believed their money would be used to fulfill Trump's chief campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border. Instead, Bannon is charged with diverting over a million dollars, paying a salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself.
Giuliani said on his Sunday radio show that, while he fears that prosecutors might “try to frame me,” he is ”willing to run that risk."
“I do not need a pardon. I don’t commit crimes," he said.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who speaks often with Trump, said on Fox's Sunday Morning Futures that there are also “a lot of people” urging the president to pardon those who participated in the storming of the Capitol building — pleas he urged the president to swiftly reject.
“I don’t care if you went there and spread flowers on the floor, you breached the security of the Capitol, you interrupted a joint session of Congress, you tried to intimidate us all. You should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and to seek a pardon of these people would be wrong,” he said. He warned that such a move “would destroy President Trump and I hope we don’t go down that road.”
In addition to the bold-faced names, Trump's list is expected to include people whose cases have been championed by criminal justice reform advocates. They are people like Chris Young, who was sentenced to life in prison for drug possession because of federal sentencing minimums and whose case has been championed by reality TV star Kim Kardashian West.
"Our nation is not well served by spending millions of taxpayer dollars burying people alive under outdated federal drug laws,” said his attorney, Brittany K. Barnett, who is co-founder of the Buried Alive Project, a criminal justice reform advocacy group.
Trump has already pardoned a number of longtime associates and supporters, including his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; the father of his son-in-law, Charles Kushner; his longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — President Joe Biden accepted endorsements from at least 15 members of the Kennedy political family during a campaign stop Thursday as he aims to undermine Donald Trump and marginalize the candidacy of independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, niece of former President John F. Kennedy and sister of the current presidential candidate, delivered the endorsements in Philadelphia by calling Biden “my hero.”
“We want to make crystal clear our feelings that the best way forward for America is to reelect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for four more years," she said.
She never directly mentioned her brother, but insisted “there are only two candidates with any chance of winning the presidency” this year, framing the campaign as a choice between Biden and Trump, with no room for a third party contender.
Biden, who keeps a bust of Robert F. Kennedy in the Oval Office, said the endorsements were “an incredible honor." He said Trump, the former Republican president who is the presumptive GOP nominee, was a threat to America's democratic traditions and that "now it's time to keep going and not slow down because there's so much at stake.”
The decision to highlight the Kennedy family's support more than six months from Election Day is an indication of how seriously Biden's team is taking a long shot candidate using his last name’s lingering Democratic magic to siphon support from the incumbent.
Kennedy Jr. played down the endorsements, writing on social media that his family was “divided in our opinions but united in our love for each other." He said his campaign was about “healing America.”
Given Kennedy Jr.'s quixotic political positions and the expectation this year's campaign will be decided by thin margins, both Democrats and Republicans worry that he could play the role of spoiler.
Biden used the campaign event, which capped a three-day swing in a battleground state critical to his reelection effort, to keep up the pressure on Trump.
“Donald Trump’s vision is one of anger, hate, revenge and retribution,” Biden said, adding, "I have a very different view of America, one of hope and optimism."
The Kennedy family endorsements are hardly a surprise. Members of the prominent Democratic family have been vocal that they don't see eye to eye politically with Kennedy Jr., who started as a protest primary challenger to Biden in the Democratic Party and now is running as an independent. Biden last month hosted more than 30 members of Kennedy’s extended family at the White House for St. Patrick’s Day, when family members posed with the president in the Rose Garden and Oval Office.
Later, Biden and members of the Kennedy family were to meet with supporters at a campaign event, and some Kennedy were planning to make calls to voters and knock on doors on Biden's behalf.
Several notable members of the family were not endorsing, including Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Australia, and nonprofit leader Maria Shriver, which the Biden campaign said was due to their nonpolitical professional roles.
Shriver, however, has been a conspicuous White House guest recently, attending the State of the Union and speaking at a women's history month reception last month.
Bernard Tamas of Valdosta State University, an expert on third parties, said it was unclear whether Kennedy Jr. would pull more votes from Democrats or Republicans.
“He is pro-science when it comes to the environment, but a conspiracy theorist when it comes to vaccines,” Tamas said.
Kennedy Jr.'s lack of a clear political lane limits his potential impact on the election, Tamas said, but Democrats appear to be more concerned because his last name could lead some voters to believe that he is carrying on his family’s political legacy.
Other than that, Tamas said, “I don’t know what else he has to attract progressive voters.”
Kennedy Jr. has spoken publicly in the past about disagreeing with his family on many issues, but maintains it can be done in “friendly” ways. After a super political action committee supporting his campaign produced a TV ad during the Super Bowl that relied heavily on imagery from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential run, Kennedy Jr. apologized to his relatives on the X social media platform, saying he was sorry if the spot “caused anyone in my family pain.”
The Democratic National Committee has hired a communications team to combat the appeal of third-party candidates, Kennedy Jr. first among them. The DNC also filed a recent Federal Election Commission complaint against Kennedy Jr.’s campaign, charging that it coordinated too closely with an affiliated super PAC to get his name on the presidential ballot in some states.
Kennedy Jr. is also viewed warily by the Trump campaign. While Trump has released a recent video saying, “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden," he has sometimes criticized Kennedy Jr. as being more “radical left” than Biden.
Biden's travels across Pennsylvania this week were an opportunity to reconnect with his roots, starting on Tuesday in Scranton, where he lived until age 10. He swung by his childhood home, a three-story colonial that his family rented, and reminisced about attending Mass at St. Paul’s.
In Pittsburgh, he called for higher tariffs on steel and aluminum from China to protect U.S. industry from what he called unfair competition.
But even that event involved some nostalgia, as Biden recalled an endorsement from the steelworkers when he was “a 29-year-old kid” from Delaware running for U.S. Senate.
“It changed everything,” he said.
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Philadelphia, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Kerry Kennedy, right, introduces President Joe Biden, second from left, at a campaign event, Thursday, April 18, 2024, in Philadelphia. Pictured from left are members of the Kennedy family Maxwell Kennedy Sr., Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Rory Kennedy and Christopher Kennedy. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Joe Biden returns a salute from Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Thursday, April 18, 2024. The President is traveling to Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
President Joe Biden boards Air Force One, Thursday, April 18, 2024, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. Biden is headed to Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Joe Kennedy speaks to members of the media before President Joe Biden arrives to speak to a Biden campaign event in Philadelphia, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
President Joe Biden waves as he boards Air Force One, Thursday, April 18, 2024, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. Biden is headed to Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks to supporters during a campaign event, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in West Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Biden scores endorsements from Kennedy family, looking to shore up support against Trump and RFK Jr
Biden scores endorsements from Kennedy family, looking to shore up support against Trump and RFK Jr
President Joe Biden waves as he walks across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, after returning from a trip to Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
