In some of his final acts as US President, Joe Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, House committee members investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and members of his own family.
Biden’s pardons come after Donald Trump, who was sworn in as president shortly after noon on Monday, warned of a list of enemies filled with those who had politically angered him or tried to blame him for his attempt to overturn his election defeat in the year 2020 and its role in the election to bring to justice the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be misconstrued as an admission that an individual has committed wrongdoing, nor should their acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for a crime,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these officers a great debt of gratitude for their tireless service to our country.”
It is common for a president to grant clemency at the end of his term, but these acts of clemency are usually given to ordinary Americans convicted of crimes.
But Biden has used the power in the most sweeping and untested way possible: to pardon those who haven’t even been investigated. And with acceptance comes a tacit admission of guilt or wrongdoing, even if those pardoned were not officially accused of any crimes.
Biden gave blanket pardons to his brother James and his wife Sara, his sister Valerie and her husband John Owens, and his brother Francis.
Biden said his family had been subjected to “relentless attacks and threats motivated solely by a desire to hurt me – the worst kind of partisan politics.”
“Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe that these attacks will stop,” he said.
Last month he pardoned his son Hunter for tax and weapons offenses.
Republicans in Congress have tried over the past two years to link Biden to what they say are questionable business transactions by Hunter Biden and James Biden, but their impeachment inquiry failed
Biden cites threats and intimidation
Fauci served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health for nearly 40 years and was Biden’s chief medical adviser until his retirement in 2022. Fauci faced the wrath of Trump when he refused to support Trump’s baseless claims.
He has become the target of intense hatred and hatred from the right, who blame him for mask mandates and other measures they say violate their rights, even as tens of thousands of Americans died.
Fauci said he appreciated Biden’s gesture.
“I have not committed a crime … and there is no possible basis for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution against me,” Fauci told ABC News.
Mark Milley is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and called Trump a fascist and detailed Trump’s behavior surrounding the deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection.
Since leaving office, Trump has directed his ire at Milley in social media posts and speeches about alleged wrongdoing, sometimes using explicit language and even suggesting the military leader was treasonous. Milley said he had to take safety precautions in retirement.
“I do not want to spend the remaining time the Lord grants me fighting against those who might unjustly seek retribution for perceived slights,” Milley said in a statement. “I do not want to burden my family, my friends and those with whom I have served with the resulting distraction, expense and anxiety.”
Biden cited in his statement Monday that the pardoned officials “faced ongoing threats and intimidation because they faithfully discharged their duties.”
US President Joe Biden is reportedly considering pre-emptive pardons for prominent critics of Donald Trump, including Dr. Anthony Fauci to protect them from possible retaliation when Trump takes office.
Biden is also pardoning members and staff of the Jan. 6 committee, including former House Democrats Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both Republicans who angered Trump’s base by agreeing to join the bipartisan group, which includes seven Democrats in leadership of committee chairman Bennie Thompson. Biden’s pardon also affects the US Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers who testified before the committee.
Kinzinger told CNN earlier this month that while he understood the reasons for a possible preemptive pardon from Biden, he personally had no interest in receiving one.
“The second you accept a pardon, it looks like you are guilty of something,” he said. “I owe nothing except bringing the truth to the American people and embarrassing Donald Trump in the process.”
Trump hints at his own pardons
Biden has warned for years that Trump’s re-emergence as president would pose a threat to democracy. His decision to break political norms with preemptive pardons stemmed from these concerns.
Biden has set the presidential record for the most individual pardons and commutations, including a pardon for his son Hunter. The president announced Friday that he would commute the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes.
Just weeks before Trump, an outspoken supporter of expanding the death penalty, took office, Biden announced that he would commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row to life in prison. In his first term, Trump presided over an unprecedented spate of executions, 13 in total, over a long period during the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden is not the first to consider such preemptive pardons.
President Gerald Ford granted his predecessor Richard Nixon a “full, free and unrestricted pardon” in 1974 in connection with the Watergate scandal. He believed that a possible trial “would provoke a prolonged and contentious debate” and that Nixon “had already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elected office in the United States.”
When Trump took office on Monday, he kept his promise to pardon those accused and convicted of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021. He has described them as “political prisoners” in the past.
About 1,575 people were pardoned, while 14 members of the militant groups Oath Keepers and Proud Boys commuted their sentences. Thousands flocked to the Capitol after Trump gave a speech in which he repeated false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
