The White House held a meeting on Sunday to finalize the list of pardons, two sources said.
Trump, who had rolled out pardons and commutations with a steady clip before Christmas, had a break in the days leading up to and immediately after the January 6 riots at the Capitol, officials said.
Aides said Trump was particularly focused on the electoral college count in the coming days, preventing him from making final pardon decisions. White House officials had expected to resume after January 6, but Trump backed out after being blamed for instigating the riot.
Initially, two large batches were ready to be rolled out, one late last week and one on Tuesday. Now officials expect the final batch to be the only one – unless Trump decides at the last minute to pardon controversial allies, members of his family, or himself.
The latest series of leniency actions are expected to include a mix of reform-minded penal pardons and more controversial pardons secured or distributed to political allies.
The pardon is one of many items Trump must complete before his presidency expires in days. White House officials have also continued to draft executive orders, and the president still hopes to release information related to the Russian probe before leaving office. But with a dwindling number of government officials still in employment, the chances of anything being done about it seemed to be diminishing.
The January 6 riots that led to Trump’s second impeachment complicated his desire to pardon himself, his children and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. At the moment, aides don’t think he will, but caution is only Trump knowing what he will do with his last bit of presidential power before he is officially absent on January 20 at noon.
After the riots, advisers encouraged Trump to refrain from self-forgiveness because it appears he was guilty of something, said a person familiar with the talks. Several of Trump’s closest advisers have also urged him not to pardon anyone involved in the siege of the Capitol, despite Trump’s initial stance that those involved had done nothing wrong.
“There are many people urging the president to pardon the people,” Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham said on Fox News on Sunday. “It would be wrong to ask for pardon from these people.”
A White House official said no paperwork had yet been prepared for self-forgiveness.
Still, Trump is expected to leave the White House on Jan. 20 and be able to pardon until noon on inauguration day.
It is also uncertain whether former Trump adviser Steve Bannon will be pardoned.
Trump continues to receive multiple streams of pardon recommendations from the advisers who remain in the White House, as well as from people outside the building who have been lobbying for themselves or their clients for months.
It is expected among allies that Trump will pardon that he could benefit from the post-presidency.
“Everything is a transaction. He likes a pardon because it’s one-sided. And he likes to do favors to people he thinks will owe him,” said a source familiar with the matter.
In the White House, there has been a battle to petition for pardon on behalf of allies and advocacy groups, and names could be added and removed until the last minute, sources say.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins contributed to this report.