Former U.S. Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told a panel led by CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he doesn’t want a presidential pardon from Joe Biden before the President cedes the Oval Office to President-elect Donald Trump. Kinzinger says that he understands “the theory” around pardon talk for Trump’s avowed enemies, a long list of detractors on which he, fellow Jan 6 Committee member and former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) are near the top.
Rejecting the pardon chatter — “I don’t want it,” he says — Kinzinger claims that the one problem is the optics. “The second a pardon is issued,” he says, “you look like you’re guilty of something.”
The rejection comes even as the former Congressman fully expects the new Trump administration to come after him to deliver retribution “because Donald Trump has clearly said he’s going to go after everybody.” (Kinzinger was a key Trump antagonist on the January 6 Committee, a role that essentially cost him his congressional seat as MAGA surged in influence.)
Cooper: Should President Biden issue pardons for the January 6 committee members including yourself?
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 6, 2025
Kinzinger: No. I don't want it.. the second you take a pardon it looks like you are guilty of something and I am guilty of nothing except bringing the truth pic.twitter.com/1JCEV1Ryyh
Kinzinger claims that the retribution won’t come in the form of a direct response to his work on the January 6 Committee, but rather “what they’ll do is they’ll weaponize other investigations, they’ll look into everything and start an investigation that’ll end up coming to naught, forcing people to pay money [to defend themselves].”
Kinzinger presents himself as prepared for this inevitable confrontation, and prepared to engage without the protective shield — a pardon — that Biden might offer while he’s still POTUS. Kinzinger insists he doesn’t need that protection.
“I’m guilty of nothing,” the former Congressman says, “except bringing the truth to the American people and in the process embarrassing Donald Trump.”
Kinzinger gets specific about what he believes Trump should be embarrassed about, citing the “187 minutes [Trump] sat there and did absolutely nothing and showed how weak and scared he truly was.”
Kinzinger is referencing Trump’s silence as he watched the rioters storm the Capitol on January 6, a lack of executive action that was a key element in the Jan 6 Committee’s findings against him. Trump, for his part, has presented an alternative narrative, portraying the actions of the rioters that day as mainly peaceful (“a day of love“) and undertaken righteously by “patriots.”
In Trump’s reframing of the events of Jan 6, those 187 minutes do not represent fear or weakness as Kinzinger and other Republicans including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have asserted — McConnell called Jan 6 “disgraceful” and called Trump “practically and morally responsible” for it.
Instead, Trump’s contention is that the silence Kinzinger criticizes was purposeful, and offers his re-election in 2024 as the final judgment on — and justification for — his actions that day.
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