Legal experts are questioning President Donald Trump’s repeated promises to pardon his entire Cabinet before he leaves office, following a startling revelation in The Wall Street Journal. This is a strong indicator of “what keeps him up at night,” according to one lawyer.
According to the report, Trump allegedly told his aides at a recent meeting, “I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval Office.” The room reportedly shared a laugh, a sentiment not shared by the rest of Washington.
And the joke seems to be evolving. A second person who met with Trump early this year told WSJ he joked about pardoning everybody who came within 10 feet. The radius may be shrinking, but the implications are only getting bigger.
Exclusive: President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments. https://t.co/VBXZxVZO1t
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 10, 2026
The report also said that Trump also discussed the possibility of holding a press conference to announce mass pardons in the final days of his term during a separate discussion with advisors in his private dining room.
The White House wasted no time playing defense. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Journal the paper “should learn to take a joke” before quickly adding that the president’s pardon power is “absolute” (via The Daily Beast).
Lawyer and podcast host Michael Popok was skeptical of the remarks. In a new episode on Sunday, Popok said the report suggests Trump clearly knows he is running a “criminal enterprise” out of the White House and that fear of prosecution by a future Democratic Department of Justice is what haunts him most at this stage of his second term, according to Raw Story.
He didn’t hold back, questioning, “I’m not sure he sleeps, or how he sleeps. I think he sleeps in a coffin at night. But the thing that keeps Donald Trump up at night would be him or others around him being criminally prosecuted, investigated by the future Department of Justice,” Popok said.
commit crimes.
get pardoned. pic.twitter.com/YHbIBwYKnY— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) April 10, 2026
The math is pretty simple to follow. Trump currently enjoys broad immunity from criminal prosecution for offenses committed while performing official duties, owing to a 2024 Supreme Court decision, but this protection does not extend to his staff. This could help explain the idea of preemptive pardons, which could serve as a legal safeguard.
Additionally, Popok suggested that the immunity ruling made it difficult to distinguish between public and private presidential behavior, and that a future Department of Justice may be open to testing those boundaries, possibly reopening the door to Trump’s prosecution after he leaves office.
Meanwhile, the numbers convey their own picture. Compared to just 238 during his first term, Trump has already granted nearly 1,600 clemencies this time. That isn’t a forgiveness policy; it’s a pattern.
