WASHINGTON – As President Biden considers a preemptive pardon to protect potential targets from prosecution for revenge by President-elect Donald Trump, one of those targets said Monday he doesn't want Biden to set a partisan precedent.
Trump said on Sunday that members of Congress who investigated the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 should be jailed.
“Frankly, they should go to prison,” Trump said of elected officials leading the investigation in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
One of those investigators, former Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), was sworn in Monday as California's junior U.S. senator. Schiff served on the committee on January 6 and presided over the first impeachment trial against Trump.
“I don't want to see a precedent where presidents issue blanket pardons to members of their party or members of their administration as they leave office,” Schiff said in an interview with the Times. “There was talk that Trump did this when he left office and that members like Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan asked him for a pardon. It would be a further deterioration of our democracy, and I just think it’s completely unnecessary.”
Trump said Sunday that he would not directly order his administration to pursue such prosecutions and would leave the decision to Pam Bondi, his pick for attorney general.
He also said he would “most likely” pardon his supporters who were convicted in the riots.
Schiff said he believes Trump's Jan. 6 comments about prosecuting members of the committee were primarily intended to have a chilling effect on congressional and judicial oversight. Instead of preemptive pardons, Schiff said he wants the Biden administration to ensure that all records of the Justice Department's investigation as of Jan. 6 are preserved and that the special counsel's report releases as much information as possible “so that the evidence is available.” .” “not to be buried or misrepresented.”
Asked if he was afraid of becoming a target, Schiff said he was more concerned about the increasing acceptance of political violence.
“We have all been under threats for years and these seem to be increasing,” he said. “This is a more immediate problem than these kinds of vague threats: 'You're going to go to jail'.”
Schiff won the election, replacing outgoing Senator Laphonza Butler, who was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to temporarily fill Senator Dianne Feinstein's seat following Feinstein's death in September 2023.
During Trump's first term in office, he gained national prominence for leading several investigations into Trump and his allies.
Schiff said how much Trump can do to target members of the Jan. 6 committee will depend on who is confirmed for key law enforcement roles. He said Kash Patel, Trump's nominee to lead the FBI, was unfit for the job.
As a senator, Schiff said he would vet and ask questions of the other candidates, including Bondi, who supported Trump's claim that the 2020 election was stolen and threatened to take action against Justice Department prosecutors who indicted Trump.
“I want to know if these are truly their intentions or if this was a form of political exaggeration,” Schiff said. “Some of the people he nominated, like Marco Rubio, I think are very well qualified. It’s obviously a mixed lot, so I’ll take them one at a time.”
Aside from the endorsements, Schiff said he has begun scheduling meetings with Republican senators after meeting with Democratic senators over the past six months. He said he wanted to identify bipartisan, shared challenges that he could tackle with colleagues from the other side, such as wildfire prevention, rural health care and the high housing costs that are driving residents of many states into homelessness.
“When I did the Trump impeachment trial, when I first walked into the Senate, I felt like a lot of these people only knew me from Fox,” he said. “I think they were a little surprised that I wasn’t this stereotype that they had seen on conservative television.”
He said he also wants to spend more time in Northern California and the Imperial Valley, as he recently did in the Central Valley, to ensure that residents see him not only as someone who represents the Los Angeles area, but also as Champion of the region entire state.
“I want to hear what they want me to focus on, what their priorities are and what I can do to bring resources back to their city, town or region,” he said. “The fact that we will have two male senators means I will work even harder to ensure that women are at the table.”
In comments from the Senate ahead of Schiff's confirmation, Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York called Schiff “a leading voice among Democrats in the House of Representatives, where he was known for his piercing eloquence, his thoughtfulness, his unwavering support of democracy and his courage.” “ .”
Schiff was accompanied to his swearing-in ceremony Monday afternoon by California Senators Alex Padilla and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). Also in attendance were Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), who ran against Schiff for the Senate seat, and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks).
Schiff, who is Jewish, was sworn in on a Maimonides Mishneh Torah by Vice President Kamala Harris. He then cast his first vote for Tiffany R. Johnson as federal district judge for the Northern District of Georgia.
Times staff writer Kevin Rector and the Associated Press contributed to this report.