Pre-emptive pardons to allies not off table: Biden

Outgoing US President Joe Biden has said that he was still considering whether to give pardons to his political supporters who have been criticised or threatened by President-elect Donald Trump.

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Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Biden said he and his aides were playing close attention to rhetoric from Trump and his allies about his political opponents and those involved in his various criminal and civil woes.

"It depends on some of the language and expectations that Trump broadcast in the last couple days here as to what he's going to do," Biden said. "The idea that he would punish people for not adhering to what he thinks should be policy related to his well-being is just outrageous."

Biden has just 10 days left in office, and the institutionalist has been using his waning days in office to restore some of the transition norms broken by his predecessor-turned-successor. But issuing preemptive pardons - for actual or imagined offenses by Trump's critics that could be investigated or prosecuted by the incoming administration would stretch the powers of the presidency in untested ways.