{"id":4885,"date":"2025-01-14T17:03:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T17:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thompson-says-he-discussed-pardons-for-jan-6-panel-democrats-with-the-white-house\/"},"modified":"2025-01-14T17:03:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T17:03:55","slug":"thompson-says-he-discussed-pardons-for-jan-6-panel-democrats-with-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thompson-says-he-discussed-pardons-for-jan-6-panel-democrats-with-the-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Thompson says he discussed pardons for Jan. 6 panel Democrats with the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The former chair of the Jan. 6 select committee said he has discussed pardons with the White House as President-elect Donald Trump threatens retribution against the panel’s Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a discussion about pardons. It wasn’t a particular pardon,\u201d Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said. \u201cFor me, as a member of the committee, if one is offered, I would accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other members of the select panel said they hadn\u2019t sought a pardon but left it up to outgoing President Joe Biden, who has floated preemptive pardons<\/a> for those who might be targeted by Trump. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve not sought one. It’s up to the president to do what he thinks is right,\u201d said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).<\/p>\n

Though presidents may offer pardons to those who don\u2019t seek them, Supreme Court precedent makes clear<\/a> that the intended recipients can turn them down, particularly if they have other defenses they want to assert against potential federal investigations.<\/p>\n

Another member of the panel, California Rep. Pete Aguilar, who is also a member of Democratic leadership, said he hadn\u2019t sought a pardon but added: \u201cI stand by the work that we did. We didn\u2019t do anything wrong. I don\u2019t think a pardon is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has broadly accused the select panel of witness tampering and destroying evidence, though he has offered no proof for those claims. And some Republicans have floated creating a select panel to consolidate their investigations into the Jan. 6 attack and Capitol security \u2014 and to potentially investigate the work of the former Capitol riot panel, too. A GOP-led subpanel conducted its own review last Congress.<\/p>\n

Punchbowl News earlier reported<\/a> the conversation among former panel members about pardons.<\/p>\n

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former chair of the Jan. 6 select committee said he has discussed pardons with the White House as President-elect Donald Trump threatens retribution against the panel’s Democrats. \u201cWe had a discussion about pardons. It wasn’t a particular pardon,\u201d Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said. \u201cFor me, as a member of the committee, if one is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}