WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and his senior aides are discussing the idea of ​​preemptively pardoning people who President-elect Donald Trump has despised in recent years for hinting at plans for retaliation, two sources familiar with the discussions confirmed.

While the discussions included certain names, including Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Dr. Anthony Fauci and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the process has not yet progressed to the point where there is consensus on an actual decision list, sources said.

Some Democrats and “Never Trump” Republicans have supported the idea of ​​preemptive pardons to protect people under a new Trump presidency.

Politico first reported that Biden was considering taking action.

Previous presidents have issued such pardons, including George HW Bush for former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal; Gerald Ford for former President Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal; Jimmy Carter for conscientious objectors in the Vietnam War; and Abraham Lincoln for former Confederate soldiers.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump made threatening comments about people he felt had insulted him or wronged him.

When Trump spoke to Tucker Carlson at an event a few days before the election, he said of Cheney: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s have her with a nine-barreled gun shooting at her, OK. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know when the guns are pointed in their faces – you know they’re all warmongers when they’re sitting in a nice building in Washington.”

Cheney, a vocal Trump critic, was a member of the House special committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, which exposed Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Schiff was also a member of this committee and the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment trial.

Near the end of the 2024 campaign, Trump said that many Democrats, including Schiff, who will move from the House to the Senate in January, were “the enemy within.” Even during Trump’s first term, he made threatening comments about Schiff, saying he should be arrested for “treason” and that he would pay a “price” for his role in Trump’s first impeachment trial.

As for Fauci, he and Trump did not get along during the president-elect’s first term in the White House, as Fauci tried to shape the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. During this time, Trump publicly attacked Fauci, calling him a “disaster.”

Work is underway in the Biden White House to allow the president to exercise clemency in criminal cases. Advocates including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and civil rights attorney Ben Crump are encouraging the president to take action on a range of cases they say are pardon-worthy. Announcements on these decisions are expected in the coming weeks.