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IN THE FINAL few minutes of his presidency yesterday, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons for several family members.
Earlier in the day, he issued preemptive pardons for others including Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical advisor during the Covid-19 pandemic, and members of the House committee that investigated the 6 January attack on the Capitol.
“These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” Biden said in a statement.
Granting pardons is common, each president does it – but Biden set the record for the number of pardons granted, almost 2,500 of which related to non-violent drug offenders.
For his part, one of Donald Trump’s first actions in his second term was to pardon more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021, in a bid to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump has repeatedly called for the prosecution of his perceived enemies, including Fauci and members of the since-disbanded committee.
Shortly after he was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, Trump called Liz Cheney, a Republican member of the 6 January committee and vocal Trump critic, a “lunatic”.
Speaking to supporters in the Capitol Visitor Center yesterday afternoon, Trump said: “Why are we helping some of these people? Why are we helping Liz Cheney? She’s a disaster – she’s a crying lunatic.”
Trump’s remarks in the Capitol Visitor Center today were a reminder that neither lies nor the liar who tells them get better with age. The Select Committee evidence is available on multiple websites and, as a criminal defendant, Donald Trump has had access to all the transcripts…
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) January 20, 2025
Responding to his remarks, Cheney said people should “remember Trump’s character”:
“He sat in his dining room watching on television as his supporters attacked our Capitol and brutally assaulted law enforcement. For hours, he refused to instruct the mob to leave. The truth will never change.”
Biden also pardoned retired general Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, yesterday.
Trump and Milley have repeatedly clashed in recent years – over the 6 January riots and other issues. In 2023, Trump suggested that Milley deserved to be executed.
In September of that year, Milley told The Atlantic that, if Trump was reelected, he believed he would be top of his hit list for revenge.
“He’ll start throwing people in jail, and I’d be on the top of the list,” Milley said at the time.
Within hours of Trump being sworn in yesterday, a portrait of Milley was taken off the wall of the Pentagon, according to media reports.
Last month, Biden pardoned his son Hunter for tax and gun crimes – despite previously saying he would not. In this case, Hunter was facing sentencing for two criminal cases related to tax evasion and lying about his drug use when he bought a gun.
However, many of those pardoned yesterday have not actually been investigated for or charged with any crimes.
Preemptive pardons are pardons given to individuals before they have been investigated for a crime.
Speaking to Katie Couric Media shortly before Biden issued yesterday’s pardons, Rachel Barkow, a law professor at New York University, said the outgoing president would likely issue preemptive pardons “because the incoming administration has indicated that they’d go after certain people, and it looks like political retribution”.
So the argument for doing it would be to spare those people from having to go through the misery of a federal investigation.
Biden issued blanket pardons for his brother James and his wife, Sara; his sister, Valerie, and her husband, John Owens; and his brother Francis.
In a statement issued minutes before Trump was sworn in as his successor, Biden said his family had been “subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics”.
“Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” Biden said.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offence.”
House Republicans last June sent a letter to the Justice Department recommending the prosecution of Hunter and James Biden, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of a Republican impeachment inquiry.
James Biden’s lawyer at the time called it a “baseless partisan action”. James Biden’s business dealings were heavily scrutinised by Republicans as part of their failed impeachment inquiry.
Republicans pointed to a series of payments that they claimed showed the president benefited from his brother’s work.
House Democrats defended the transaction last year, saying James Biden was repaying a $200,000 (about €193,000) loan provided by his brother. The money changed hands while Joe Biden was a private citizen.
In a voluntary interview as part of the impeachment inquiry, James Biden said his brother “never had any involvement” in the business dealings of other members of his family.
Other US presidents have also pardoned family members. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger for drug charges after he had served his sentence roughly a decade earlier.
In the final weeks of his first term as president, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was previously convicted of tax evasion and witness tampering.
Trump also pardoned multiple allies who were convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Contains reporting from Press Association and © AFP 2025
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Pharmaceutical corporations completely pardoned from the damage they do with their products ain’t a left or right thing.
@Dere: The left hate billionaires, unless they are pharmaceutical billionaires who made billions off the vaccine. The only reason the left wanted everyone to be vaccinated was to enrich these pharmaceutical billionaires. They really are a strange bunch.
@Dere: The whole thing is tainted and full of hypocrisy whether its GOP or Dems in charge, and when social media eventually gets its day for the damage its caused, they will all be pardoned too like the pharma crowd are
Swings and roundabouts from the supposed super power democracy of the free world
@Dere: so you’ve never been to a GP nor hospital and never been prescribed medication ?
@Johnny Wilson: gonna guess that you weren’t given dirty looks for not taking that medication Johnny. A vaccine we were told would stop you getting Covid by both Biden and Fauci. And before anyone jumps in I took two shots
There is no left and right, just the necessary spin to keep all you NPC’s busy.
Last sting of a dying wasp.
@Maurice: It was suspicious how on January 6th hundreds of protesters were ushered in to a normally secure building the end result being chaos. Someone authorised that. ?
I dont blame him, whats good for the MAGA is good for the rest of them over in Muricaland…….The fact any president no matter what side they are on shouldnt have the kind of power to dish out pardons like they are sweets is insane and open to abuse on so many levels
@Patrick Newell: Trump during his last term gave 1737 pardons
Biden…8064!!
@Patrick Newell: yes, it does indicate to me the importance of the separation of powers so the law makers cannot influence the law enforcers and visa versa. Bad and all as people may see democracy in Ireland at least we do not have outgoing politicians granting pardons… And we do not grant incoming the power to initiate prosecutions.
@Patrick Newell: trump didn’t give any preemptive pardons
@Emer McDonnell: Doesnt matter who gave more there needs to be a limit on how much pardons any president can give. Imagine the numpties we have in Ireland with that sort of power, it would be like an Irish version of mad max
@Niall O’Cofaigh: Agree 100%, for all the drooling and dribbling thats done about america at times, when ya drill down its a really toxic spot polirically and makes our mob look competent
@Damien Leahy: it’s just he never thought about it.The 78 year old bully sad man even the wife ducked his sleazy lips
@Tim Brennan: well the media said he was going to give a wave of preemptive pardons on his last term (which he never did.) And biden criticised him for it and even went on to say we wouldn’t see any pardons in bidens administration. But don’t let facts get in the way of you crying.
Why would they need to pardon the father of man made Covid didn’t the bats not get blamed successfully by Big Pharma
If mister fauci did noting wrong, what’s to hide? Pardons are for guilty people.
Because they’re criminals.
Short answer: because fascists are violent.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: what was Trump going to do? Give him a wedgie?
He hasn’t been accused or charged of any crime.
His above the law pardon retrospectively dates back to 2014.
Have you considered why that might be? (other than as you said; fascists are violent)
He spend 4 years shouting that he had faith in the justice system.
This clearly indicates that the president of America had no faith in his justice system. Why not fix it..
He’s knows it’s crooked, because he used it the same way .
Because he’s no better than Trump.
Because he is a coward who hid behind the power of the Presidential Office dictating, vilifying and harassing his social and political opponents. Now the roles are reversed he foresaw justice incoming and like the cowardly lowlife he is he once again abused the power of the Oval Office.
@Any Name: The Americans are a nation full of homeless people none of them are Americans all are some kind of immigrants.
Sad dispicable country
@Tim Brennan: Have you forgotten the indigenous peoples?
Americans are the greatest clowns in the world money is God and Trump is the Devil in flesh
@Tim Brennan: Turn that frown upside down, go and look at some men in shorts.
@Dave f Doe: Charming
@Eric Gaffney: I really don’t like
Why.
Par for the course really.
Do you people know what right and left wing means?because I don’t think any of you have any understanding of it!center Yeep any off the other two nooo
So Biden pardons people who supposedly haven’t even broken the law, and instead of pointing out how wrong that it is, the Journal just runs with “but Trump did this and Trump will do that”! Pathetic!
Biden has done no more than Trump will do and he has already started
Because he’s just as bad as Trump, potentially worse
He pardoned them because he could
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