Former President Bill Clinton has spoken out over whether President Joe Biden should preemptively pardon wife Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic Party presidential candidate, due to concerns she could be targeted by the incoming Donald Trump administration.
During an appearance on ABC’s The View on Wednesday he said “I think if President Biden wanted to talk to me about that I would talk to him about it” before adding he didn’t want to give advice publicly.
His remarks follow reports that Kash Patel, nominated by President-elect Trump as FBI director, has one or more lists of perceived political enemies that he could target, if confirmed in the role. According to Slate, Patel has a “list of enemies” which includes “people who work within the [justice] department.”
On December 2, The Bulwark’s Tim Miller posted a list of “deep state officials” included in Patel’s 2023 book Government Gangsters, which included Hillary Clinton.
During his appearance on The View, Bill Clinton was asked whether “it would be wise of President Biden to preemptively pardon any potential targets” such as his wife.
The former president replied: “Well they got a problem with her because first she didn’t do anything wrong, second she followed the rules exactly as they were written, third Trump’s state department found, you remember how the emails were such a big issue in 2016, Trump’s state department found that Hillary sent and received exactly zero classified emails on her personal device. It was a made up, phony story.”
Ahead of the 2016 election Hillary Clinton was sharply criticized for using a private email server for official business during her time as Secretary of State. An FBI investigation found some emails marked “secret” or “top secret” were handled this way. The FBI later concluded she had been “extremely careless,” but did not recommend criminal charges.
Eugene Gologursky for The New York Times/GETTY
Bill Clinton continued: “I guess if Kash Patel is determined to make one up he could do it but I think if President Biden wanted to talk to me about that I would talk to him about it but I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power.
“It’s a very personal thing it is, I hope he won’t do that. Most of us get out of this world ahead of where we’d get if all we got was simple justice, so its normally a fool’s errand to spend a lot of time trying to get even.”
It is unclear from the clip whether the former president said “I hope he won’t do that” with reference to Biden pardoning his wife, or Patel launching an investigation into her.
Newsweek contacted Bill and Hillary Clinton for comment on Thursday by email outside of regular office hours via the Clinton Foundation. The White House and Donald Trump’s presidential transition team were also contacted by email.
On December 1, Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden who was awaiting sentencing after being convicted on tax evasion and firearms charges. The pardon covered the period January 1, 2014, to December 1, 2024, making it much more difficult for Hunter Biden to face prosecution over alleged influence peddling, which both Bidens strongly deny.
In May, Trump became the first former U.S. president in history with a felony record after he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business documents which prosecutors said he did to conceal the payment of hush money to a pornographic movie actress before the 2016 presidential election. Trump strongly denied any wrongdoing and branded the verdict “rigged.” Earlier this week Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg suggested sentencing could be delayed until after Trump leaves office.
Trump was also facing federal cases over claims he mishandled classified documents and broke the law trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election nationwide, along with a separate Georgia case related to the 2020 election. The incoming president has denied any wrongdoing, and Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped the two federal cases following Trump’s election in November.
