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Biden should pardon Trump, as well as Trump’s enemies, says Watergate figure John Dean

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 5, 2024, 9:19 am CST

Former lawyer and Nixon White House counsel John Dean is suggesting that President Joe Biden should go further with his pardons.

At the top of Dean’s suggested pardons list is President-elect Donald Trump. Others who should receive blanket pardons include everyone “on Trump’s enemies list,” including special counsels who investigated and prosecuted Trump, and everyone on the special counsel teams.

Dean made his suggestions in a post on the social media site Bluesky.

Fox News and HuffPost noted Dean’s recommendations.

Special counsels who should be pardoned, Dean said, are Jack Smith (who prosecuted Trump in the classified-documents and election-subversion cases) and Robert Mueller (who investigated but found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign).

In an interview with CNN, Dean said the pardons “would create a safe harbor” for the recipients and “take out the retribution and revenge element” from the Trump campaign.

Fox News noted Trump’s comments about retribution at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023.

“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” Trump said.

Trump later told Fox News host Sean Hannity in June that people worried about retribution are wrong because “it has to stop because otherwise we’re not going to have a country.”

He added however, that “based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them.”

Dean, who was convicted of obstruction of justice in the Watergate coverup, became a whistleblower in congressional testimony about the break-in. He has been “an outspoken critic of Trump,” Fox News reports.

See also:

Trump’s lawyers cite Hunter Biden pardon in NY hush money dismissal bid

Must Hunter Biden’s indictment be dismissed after presidential pardon? Special counsel doesn’t think so

With Hunter pardon, Biden joins short list of presidents who absolved family