Former President Bill Clinton told The View on Wednesday he’d be open to discussing a potential “preemptive pardon” for his wife Hillary Clinton with President Joe Biden.
Clinton joined The View table to discuss the incoming administration and his new book Citizen when he was asked by co-host Sunny Hostin if he thought it was “wise” for Biden to “preemptively pardon” people who may be on an “enemies list” for President-elect Donald Trump.
“Do you think it would be wise of President Biden to preemptively pardon any potential targets? What about your wife, Hillary Clinton?” she asked. “She apparently is on Kash Patel’s list.”
Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be director of the FBI. Patel previously published a list of dozens of people he viewed as “deep state” enemies.
Clinton argued that his wife “followed the rules exactly as they were written,” referring to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal in 2016 in which she received scrutiny for using a private server as secretary of state. Clinton noted that official investigations never found his wife guilty of what she was accused of by Republicans. It was under Trump’s State Department that she was cleared of wrongdoing, he added.
“They’ve got a problem with her because first, she didn’t do anything wrong. Second, she followed the rules exactly as they were written. Third, Trump’s State Department — Trump’s State Department — found — remember how the emails were such a big issue in 2016? Trump’s State Department found that Hillary sent and received exactly zero classified emails on her personal device. It was a made-up phony story,” the former president said.
Clinton called any potential targeting of his wife a “fool’s errand,” but said he would be open to discussing the possibility of a pardon with the president if he asked him to.
“So, you know, I guess if Kash Patel is determined to make one up, he could do it, but I think if President Biden wanted to talk to me about that, I will talk to him about it, but I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power. I think it’s too — it’s a very personal thing, but it is — I hope [Trump] won’t do that,” he said. “Trump, you know, most of us get out of this world ahead of where we’d get if all we got was simple justice. And so it’s normally a fool’s ear and to spend a lot of time trying to get even.”
Co-host Joy Behar asked whether a pardon would “imply” that Hillary Clinton or others did something wrong, to which Clinton replied, “Not necessarily.”
Watch above via ABC.
