Barack Obama's old body man, Eric Holder, is advising President Biden to withhold his mercy as he weighs a potential pardon of chief political rival Donald Trump.
Biden should let "the system do its work" before making a decision about pardoning Trump over his handling of classified documents, Holder told CBS' Face the Nation.
"Try the cases, see what the results are and then treat that convicted president or anybody else who is convicted as any other person would be treated,” Holder said.
Trump must first demonstrate "remorse" over his handling of classified documents, Holder said.
“Pardons generally are for people who express remorse and then who have done things that show that they have turned their lives around,” he continued.
“If those kinds of determinations can be made with regard to the former president or anybody else who is convicted, yes, I would support that. In the absence of something like that, I don’t think that would be a wise thing to do."
Some on the right have expressed similar sentiments about a Trump pardon, including Trump's former vice president Mike Pence.
“I think we need to let the courts do their job. And let this case work its way through our judicial system,” Pence said, calling pardon speculation "premature."
Trump has attacked the Justice Department's prosecution as part of a broader effort, going back years, to sabotage his political ambitions through lawfare.
Biden himself has remained silent on the indictment - no doubt wary of feeding perceptions that the case is a political hit designed to crush his opponent.
But others in his orbit haven't been shy, including his own wife, Jill Biden, and his old boss. A notorious pot stirrer, Obama said the prosecution proves that the so-called rule of law is working.
"But the fact that we have a former president who is having to answer to charges brought by prosecutors does uphold the basic notion that nobody’s above the law and the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process.”
While many are troubled by the spectacle of an incumbent president prosecuting his chief political rival, even as the president's own son receives a "sweetheart deal," Democrats have insisted that "no one is above the law."
