Biden Considered Pardoning Trump Before Leaving Office, Republican Governor Claims

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Former President Joe Biden considered giving a pardon to President Donald Trump, a Republican governor is claiming in his new book.

The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins spoke with Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) about his book and published excerpts from the book, including two separate stories involving Biden and Trump.

Cox recalled sitting in a limousine in Salt Lake City with then-President Biden in August, 2023 when he pitched him on pardoning Trump, then facing numerous legal battles including a fraud case in New York.

“Mr. President, I know this might sound crazy, but I think you should pardon Donald Trump,” Cox recalled telling Biden in his book Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt, which will release on September 8.

“You know, I’ve actually considered this for a while,” Cox claimed Biden told him. “In fact, just this week as we were lying in bed, Jill and I had a long conversation about it.”

The governor said Biden told him he’d seriously consider a Trump pardon, which would never actually end up happening.

Cox recalled a separate story with Trump. Cox did not support Trump before the 2024 assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, but afterwards Cox offered his endorsement to Trump and pushed for him to embrace a more civil approach to politics in a letter.

“You have the opportunity to do something that no other person on earth can do right now: unify and save our country,” the governor wrote in his letter.

Cox said he was disappointed to also not see this happen, seeing Trump go back to his usual attacks on his political foes.

“When I spoke with President Biden, I hoped he would choose mercy over escalation,” Cox wrote about the experiences. “When I wrote to President Trump, I hoped he would choose unity over retaliation. In both cases, things didn’t turn out quite the way I’d hoped.”

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