Legal expert warns Trump's pardons of election deniers meant to send 4-word message

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters, during the swearing-in ceremony for Sergio Gor as U.S. Ambassador to India at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 10, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Donald Trump recently issued dozens of preemptive pardons for far-right attorneys and activists who assisted in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. One expert is cautioning that the pardons are less about actual clemency and more about sending a specific message.

In the memo, Trump pardoned attorney John Eastman (who wrote the "Eastman Memo" outlining the plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence invalidate the 2020 electoral vote certification), former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (also Trump's former personal attorney before losing his law license last year), lawyer Kenneth Chesebro (who hatched the "fake electors" plot), and attorney Sidney Powell (who was one of Trump's co-defendants in his Georgia election interference case). Trump's memo also named former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Department of Justice (DOJ) official Jeffrey Clark, Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn, and attorneys Christina Bobb, Jenna Ellis, and Ray Smith.

In a Monday article, Politico's Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein reported that the pardons do little of substance, as those who were named in the announcement have mostly been ensnared in state-level investigations (which presidents have no power over). However, Liz Oyer — who was the DOJ's pardon attorney in former President Joe Biden's administration – said that the memo should be understood as Trump blessing future efforts to overturn unfavorable election results.

"Trump is sending a message to his supporters that if you commit a crime in the name of Donald Trump, I’ve got your back," she said.

Oyer further warned that the memo was so vaguely written that current DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin (who presided over the dismissal of multiple January 6 defendants) could use it as justification to have the administration grant additional pardons of election deniers in the future.

"That’s just not how pardon paperwork is written," Oyer said.

While former DOJ special counsel Jack Smith dismissed his criminal cases against Trump after he was reelected, the state-level cases against the various election deniers named are ongoing. Last year, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) indicted 18 members of Trump's legal team – including Bobb, Eastman, Ellis, Epshteyn, Giuliani, Meadows, and other Republican officials — for their efforts "to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters." Investigators in Nevada and Wisconsin are also prosecuting their own cases against people tied to Trump's post-2020 election efforts. All of the ongoing cases are currently bogged down in litigation.

Click here to read Cheney and Gerstein's full article in Politico.

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