California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff is considering rejecting a pardon that former President Joe Biden issued to all the people involved in the Congressional investigation into the January 6 riot, including himself.
During an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Schiff spoke about potential “blowback” from accepting a pardon because he spent years claiming — when President Donald Trump was serving in his first term — that accepting a pardon was an “admission of guilt.”
“And of course President Biden did issue pardons to members of the January 6th Committee. You were on the January 6th Committee. It came after President Trump said that he thought the entire January 6th Committee should go to jail. What’s interesting, Senator, you had been quite vocal. You didn’t want President Biden to give you a pardon. You went so far as to convey that to the White House. So, what are you going to do about the fact that you’ve now been given a pardon? Are you going to accept it, or are you planning to look for some type of legal recourse to reject it?” Welker asked Schiff.
“We’re looking at it. I’m not sure there’s much to be done given that it went to the whole committee. This is also, I think, unprecedented. You know, in the first instance it was a result of the president threatening – wrongfully threatening to go after people who oversee this misconduct in a legitimate committee process. Nevertheless, we’ll have to look at this as a committee to see if there’s anything to be done,” Schiff responded.
“What does that mean, you’re going to ‘look at it’? Does that mean that you’ll make a decision collectively about whether to accept these pardons?” Welker asked.
Schiff responded: “We have tried to operate together as a committee. And I think the law is unclear because this is, frankly, uncharted territory, whether pardons of this nature are like a law in which you’re powerless to say yea or nay, or there’s something different.”