Earlier this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted a warning on X that should make every American nervous about what Democrats have planned if they ever regain power. "To all members of the Trump administration, the incitement and engagement in state violence against the American people is a serious crime," he wrote. "Donald Trump will leave office long before the five-year statute of limitations expires. You are hereby put on notice.”
There was nothing subtle about it. That was a threat. Jeffries explicitly invoked the five-year statute of limitations, making it crystal clear he's planning after-the-fact prosecutions of Trump officials and ICE agents once Trump leaves office if Democrats are back in power. His targets are federal employees doing their jobs and enforcing our immigration laws. Democrats have spent years attacking ICE, calling agents things like "Trump's Gestapo" and treating lawful enforcement as criminal conduct.
And he wasn’t bluffing.
He held a press briefing at the Capitol where he repeated and expanded his threats against Trump officials and ICE agents. "So every single one of these people who we see brutalizing the American people, they're gonna be held accountable one way or the other, [in] accordance with the law," he said. He continued, "And the statute of limitations, this is for every single member of the Trump administration, is five years. Donald Trump will be long gone, left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, statute of limitations will be alive and well.”
Does that sound like a bluff? Not to me.
The key point is that Joe Biden already established a precedent that Trump needs to protect those who defended our nation against illegal immigrants. On his final day in office, Biden issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the partisan January 6 committee. Biden claimed these pardons were not admissions of guilt, but protective measures to shield these individuals from what he described as “baseless and politically motivated” prosecutions, as well as potential reputational and financial damage.
Related: Hakeem Jeffries Just Crossed a Dangerous Line That Can’t Be Uncrossed
At the time, Biden and his allies framed the move as necessary protection against a “weaponized Justice Department” under Trump. Pure projection. After all, it was Biden's administration that weaponized the Justice Department by aggressively investigating and prosecuting Trump and his allies after Trump left office in 2021.
Thanks to Biden's precedent, Trump could preemptively pardon all ICE agents and any member of his administration to protect them from Democrat weaponization of the justice system after he leaves office. Of course, hopefully it won’t be necessary because Republicans win the White House and keep Congress. Still, if that doesn’t happen, Trump should not forget that Jeffries made it very clear he intends to target those who merely enforced immigration law.
Democrats have already weaponized the government against their enemies, so when they say they’ll do it again, we should believe them. It's an unfortunate position for the country, but Biden set the precedent. Trump may have to follow suit to protect those who were merely enforcing the law.
