Biden Privately Considered Pardoning Trump as Prosecutions Mounted, Utah Governor Reveals

Former President Joe Biden privately considered pardoning Donald Trump in 2023 as the future president faced an escalating series of criminal prosecutions, according to a new account from Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.

Cox reveals the previously unknown conversation in his upcoming book, describing an August 2023 discussion with Biden during a presidential visit to Salt Lake City. At the time, Trump had recently been federally indicted over allegations surrounding his efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.

According to Cox, the two men were riding together in the presidential limousine when the governor proposed an extraordinary idea: Biden should pardon Trump. Cox believed doing so could help lower the political temperature and prevent the country from entering a dangerous cycle of prosecutions and retaliation between opposing political parties.

Rather than immediately dismissing the suggestion, Biden reportedly revealed that the possibility had already been on his mind. The then-president told Cox that he had been seriously considering the idea for some time.

Biden then disclosed that he and first lady Jill Biden had recently discussed the possibility privately while lying in bed. According to Cox’s account, Biden said the couple had a lengthy conversation about whether Trump should receive a presidential pardon even as political pressure mounted for the former president to face prosecution.

The revelation offers a striking glimpse into Biden’s private thinking during one of the most politically explosive periods of his presidency. Publicly, Biden largely avoided discussing whether he might intervene in Trump’s federal prosecutions, repeatedly maintaining that the Justice Department operated independently.

Trump was facing legal battles on several fronts at the time. Federal prosecutors had charged him in connection with classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago and separately over his attempts to contest the 2020 election results, while Manhattan prosecutors were pursuing their own criminal case involving business records.

Cox, who was not supporting Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign at the time, reportedly worried that prosecuting a former president who remained the leading political opponent of the sitting president could deepen divisions across the country. He believed a pardon could potentially break what he feared would become a continuing cycle of political retribution.

Biden ultimately rejected that path and never pardoned Trump. It remains unclear what position Jill Biden took during the couple’s private conversation or whether she played any role in her husband’s ultimate decision.

Even if Biden had granted Trump a sweeping federal pardon, it would only have applied to federal offenses. A president has no authority to pardon state crimes, meaning the prosecutions brought against Trump in New York and Georgia could still have proceeded.

Trump was indicted in Georgia shortly after Cox’s conversation with Biden. The federal prosecutions against Trump were eventually abandoned after he defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and prepared to return to the White House.

The Georgia election case was also ultimately dismissed. In New York, however, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts involving falsification of business records, although he continued challenging the case and denouncing the prosecution as politically motivated.

Biden’s decision not to pardon Trump stands in sharp contrast to several controversial pardons he eventually issued. During his presidency, Biden granted dozens of pardons and ultimately gave his son Hunter Biden a sweeping pardon despite previously insisting publicly that he would not do so.

Before leaving office, Biden also issued preemptive pardons to several prominent figures who could potentially have faced scrutiny under the incoming Trump administration, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The newly revealed conversation shows that behind closed doors, Biden was at least contemplating a dramatically different approach to Trump’s legal troubles. Rather than allowing the federal prosecutions to continue, the sitting Democratic president briefly considered using his constitutional authority to pardon the Republican who would ultimately defeat his party and return to the White House.