CNN Biden Insider Says Pardons For Trump Enemies List Are ‘Absolutely A Serious Process’ White House Is Undergoing

CNN analyst and former Biden Communications Director Kate Bedingfield said she believes there’s “absolutely” a process underway to consider pardons for people President-elect Donald Trump might target in office after President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden.

President Biden stunned the country on Sunday when he announced his pardon of his son, writing that Hunter “was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong.”

One defense of the pardon is that Biden wanted to protect his son from unjust persecution by an administration with a literal enemies list — leading some to wonder why more protective pardons weren’t issued as well. Politico reported Wednesday that such pardons are being discussed.

On Thursday’s edition of CNN This Morning, anchor Kasie Hunt asked Bedingfield “how real do you think this is?”:

KASIE HUNT: President Biden sparked a wave of bipartisan backlash this week, announcing the sweeping pardon of his son, Hunter.

But according to New Politico reporting, it may not be the only pardon that Biden grants. Jonathan Martin reports this.

“President Biden’s senior– president, Joe Biden’s senior aides, are conducting a vigorous internal debate over whether to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials who could be targeted with President elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House”.

One House Democrat already has some ideas about who should be on that list.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN: Jack Smith name is on my list in this chain. Liz Cheney is on my list.

I think that they all should be preemptively pardoned because I think there are people who Trump may bring into this government who will go after these people in a serious way, and there’s no need to subject them to that.

KASIE HUNT: Kate Bedingfield, how real do you think this is and how how important does the White House see this?

KATE BEDINGFIELD: I think it’s real. I think they are–. I mean, look, you heard President Biden and then Vice President Harris on the campaign trail talk about what they believed Donald Trump’s abuses of power would mean. And I think that they’re taking every opportunity here to explore the options they have left in the time that they have left in office to protect people who may be subject to that attack.

So, yes, I think it’s I think it is absolutely a serious process they’re undergoing. We’ll see what the ultimate outcome is. But I would imagine that Biden views this as an opportunity to ensure that people who don’t deserve to be targeted in that way aren’t.

ALEX THOMPSON: People in the White House and the Biden campaign and in the Harris campaign have legitimate fears during the race of what would happen if Trump won. Really do fearing potential legal persecution and also what the costs would do.

That being said, the context here matters and that this is coming right after a lot of Democrats are very upset with how Joe Biden rolled out his his pardon of his son Hunter, doing it as a one off as being like, “Oh I’m very, very concerned about political persecution and I’m only doing my son.”.

And they’re like, well, if you’re so worried, then why not include this with lots of other people? And so you have to put it within the context of that

Watch above via CNN This Morning.