Patty Murray

A high-ranking Senate Democrat ripped a report that President Donald Trump promised mass pardons to top White House staff as “blatant and historic corruption.”

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump has said in meetings that he promised to pardon “everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval” Office, citing sources familiar with the president’s remark.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, expressed outrage over the report on Tuesday.

“What kind of crimes are being committed that White House staff would need pardons for? This is blatant and historic corruption,” Murray tweeted.

She then took a jab at the president’s past legal issues.

“Criminals should NOT be running the White House,” Murray said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Journal that Trump’s remark was a joke, although she also said the president’s pardon power is absolute.

On Day 1 of his presidency, Trump granted clemency to all 1,500-plus people charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection that shook the foundation of American democracy, drawing ire from his critics.

In October, the president pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served prison time for failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism.

Zhao and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family’s crypto enterprises.

Administration critics claimed Trump pardoned Zhao because of those connections and not the merit of Zhao’s case.