The former chair of the partisan January 6th committee is raising his hand for a pre-emptive pardon from Joe Biden.

Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson insisted to CNN that the January 6th committee has done "nothing wrong" but he said he would not reject a pardon if offered.

"The president, it’s his prerogative. If he offers it, to me or other members of the committee, I think it, I would accept it, but it’s his choice," Thompson said.

Thompson defends J6 committee

The January 6th committee controversially included only two Republicans, both of whom were anti-Trump, after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) rejected the GOP's picks.

The panel's 18-month investigation produced a lengthy report that inspired Jack Smith's since-dropped federal indictment of Donald Trump for "election interference."

The lame-duck Biden administration is now considering pre-emptive pardons for Trump's political opponents, as Trump's critics raise the alarm about the possibility of retribution.

In his first post-election interview, Trump suggested that Thompson and others who served on the J6 committee, like Liz Cheney, should face jail for deleting evidence, although Trump suggested he is inclined to move on from the past and let "success" be his revenge.

Thompson told CNN that Republicans have found "nothing" to question the January 6th committee's work, which Republicans have called cherrypicked and misleading.

"There is nothing on the record that is not on point," Thompson said. "We’ve had two years of review by Republican chairpersons and they found nothing wrong," Thompson asserted. "We stand by the work of the committee. Our committee did a wonderful job."

Bad optics?

A counter-investigation into the committee's work from Republican Barry Loudermilk (Ga.) uncovered evidence that was buried by the committee. This included video of Pelosi admitting "responsibility" for the security breakdown at the Capitol.

Republicans also found that files were deleted before the Pelosi-driven J6 committee disbanded.

"It’s obvious that Pelosi’s Select Committee went to great lengths to prevent Americans from seeing certain documents produced in their investigation," Rep. Loudermilk told Fox News. "It also appears that Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney intended to obstruct our Subcommittee by failing to preserve critical information and videos as required by House rules."

While accepting a pre-emptive pardon might look to some like an admission of wrongdoing, Thompson does not appear to be concerned about optics at this point.

After all, this is the same man who infamously pushed legislation to strip Secret Service protection from Trump. Thompson continued to defend the effort even after Trump narrowly survived assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania.