'Clear evidence of a guilty conscience': Donald Trump reportedly floated 'blanket pardons' for coup allies

On Wednesday's edition of Deadline: White House, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace and her guest panelists discussed the extraordinary revelations by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection that then-President Donald Trump had seriously considered issuing so-called "blanket pardons" for his Republican congressional allies who aided his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and foment his failed coup against the United States government.

This previously unreleased plot twist by the Select Committee is yet another plunge into the rabbit hole of misdoings by Trump as he desperately tried to remain in power.

"Luke Broadwater, I have to start with you," Wallace said to the New York Times' congressional correspondent. "And it feels like this whole topic of pardons was very well deployed by the Committee, but in some ways saving some of this evidence for the very end that not only did he know he lost, he knew that he and his aides had likely committed crimes."

READ MORE: Highlights from the latest batch of January 6th Select Committee transcripts

Broadwater agreed and further noted that Trump's open musings with former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone about possibly abusing his executive authority paints a damning picture of Trump's intent, which would be a boon to prosecutors if he is ever indicted.

"Right. Well, you know, as the January 6th Committee is releasing these hundreds of transcripts – and they're racing to get them all out the door before January 3rd, when Republicans will take control of the Congress – the reason they're doing that is they really want the full transcripts out there, and they don't want the new House majority to be able to cherry-pick evidence and selectively release things. But as they're putting this out, we're seeing even more revelations that we didn't know necessarily in real-time. We've heard a lot about, talk about the pardons, but to be sort of a fly on the wall here and hear the discussion between Donald Trump and Pat Cipollone as he sort of floating ideas, 'what if we pardon everybody? What if we pardon only the people who went in the building? What if we pardon all the White House staff?'" Broadwater pondered.

"The idea that Donald Trump believed all these pardons were necessary, I think, is quite telling. And in the January 6th Committee's report, when they point to the pardons that were requested by some members of Congress, they say that they believe that that is clear evidence of a guilty conscience, that looking back, some of these people, after January 6th, looked at the events they were involved in and thought that they would have criminal liability here and criminal exposure," Broadwater added. "And so that's the subtext to these documents that were released yesterday. But, yes, it's quite opening conversations here, the president is floating to his top lawyer in the White House."

Watch below or at this link.

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