Millions of Americans were outraged last month when Joe Biden made a far-reaching grant of clemency to his son, Hunter Biden, but it now appears that the outgoing president may have just been getting started.

According to a recent interview with USA Today, Biden is still considering pardons for a host of controversial figures he believes President-elect Donald Trump may target for retribution once he takes office, as Fox News reports.

Pardons still possible

Speaking to the outlet's Washington bureau chief, Susan Page, Biden touched on a range of topics, including whether he believes Trump will attempt to exact revenge or “settle scores” with people he believes have wronged him in recent years.

Biden indicated that during his post-election Oval Office meeting with the president-elect, he encouraged Trump not to take retaliatory action after his return to the White House, noting, “He didn't say, 'No, I'm going to...' You know. He didn't reinforce it. He just basically listened.”

Even so, Biden apparently believes that acts of revenge remain a possibility, and thus he is continuing to consider extending preemptive pardons to a number of notable names, rumored to include Dr. Anthony Fauci, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Sen. Adam Schiff, and former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as well as special counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, and others.

Asked specifically about his intentions, Biden told Page that “a little bit of it depends on who [Trump] puts in what positions,” a seeming reference to the president-elect's choices for key roles such as attorney general and FBI director, roles for which he has already selected Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, respectively.

Though it is far from certain that Trump intends to demand probes and potential prosecutions of rivals such as those referenced above, Patel has previously suggested a desire to pursue those within the FBI who has “in any way abused their authority for political ends,” as Forbes notes.

Mixed response from potential recipients

The notion of preemptive pardons, first floated in the media weeks ago, has been met with a range of reactions from those who could stand to gain from such a move.

Thompson (D-MS), who served as chairman of the now-disbanded House Jan. 6 committee that was extremely critical of Trump, indicated that he would gladly accept a pardon from Biden, should he decide to offer one, as The Hill reported.

“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 during an appearance on CNN.

Taking a different position, however, was Schiff, a longtime Trump critic and foe, who said that he does not want a preemptive pardon, suggesting that such a grant of clemency would set an undesirable “precedent” for future administrations, but stopping short of declaring that he would refuse a pardon if one was offered, as The Hill noted separately.

Kinzinger, one of just two Republicans who served on the House Jan. 6 panel, has also expressed his disinterest in a pardon, according to The Hill, noting defiantly that while he understands “the theory behind” the idea, he believes that “the second you take a pardon and it looks like you're guilty of something – I'm guilty of nothing besides bringing the truth to the American people, and in the process, embarrassing Donald Trump...”

Biden's next move unclear

Amid Biden's continued deliberations about whether to take proactive steps to protect his allies against potential recriminations from his successor, Sen. Ed. Markey (D-MA) has suggested that preemptive parties are the way to do, claiming that “Trump is going to try to act in a dictatorial way, in a fascistic way, in a revengeful [way his] first year... toward individuals who he believes harmed him.”

Whether Biden takes Markey's alarmist prediction at face value and issues a slew of preemptive clemency is something that remains to be seen, but, as he told Page, more “traditional” pardons and commutations, in addition to the highly controversial ones he has already granted, are likely in the offing ahead of Jan. 20.