President Plans to Protect Elon Musk and Cabinet Members with 'Preemptive Pardon'

Washington – Agencies: U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to “protect” Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, who previously headed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and other members of his administration by granting them potential preemptive pardons. Trump told Miranda Devine on the “Pod Force One” program, broadcast by The New York Post, “It’s just rumors, but if it’s rumors, we will protect them.” The U.S. president responded when asked about the possibility of Democrats targeting Elon Musk or Edward Coristine, a former DOGE official, saying, “If they do, we will simply have to protect those people.” Trump spoke about how former President Joe Biden pardoned several individuals before leaving office. When asked whether he would issue pardons to people within his administration, Trump said, “I will do it if necessary, absolutely.” Devine asked him, “For everyone who worked with you?” Trump replied, “I won’t even think about it, I’ll do it. I did it in the January 6 case,” referring to the blanket pardons and sentence commutations he issued for those accused in the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. In a separate interview with Time magazine last month, Trump indicated that he would consider issuing pardons to members of his administration near the end of his term. He said, “Yes, absolutely I will do that.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an emergency petition filed by the Donald Trump administration to cancel mail-in ballots belonging to more than 20,000 voters in California. The Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned order rejecting the petition without providing justification for its decision, one day before the midterm elections. The U.S. Department of Justice had asked the Supreme Court to issue an order temporarily barring California from counting mail-in ballots sent to more than 20,000 registered voters, with federal authorities alleging that some of these voters are not U.S. citizens. The Department of Justice filed this request in an attempt to prevent the counting of disputed ballots until the citizenship status of each voter could be verified, after a federal appeals court had rejected the request. The U.S. administration is demanding that California, which typically votes for the Democratic Party, separate ballots alleged to be illegal from the rest and not count them until the citizenship of the voters is confirmed.