As he prepares to cede power to Donald Trump, the Democratic president granted a series of preventive pardons to several personalities on Monday, to protect them from “unjustified and politically motivated legal proceedings”.
Joe Biden took advantage of his last hours in office to use his power one last time. As he prepares to hand over the keys to the White House to Donald Trump this Monday, January 20, the American Democratic President granted a series of preventive pardons to elected officials and civil servants. They all have one thing in common: they are the bugbears of the Trumpists. “Worryingly, public servants have been subjected to threats and intimidation for faithfully carrying out their duties”Joe Biden said in a statement. To protect them from “unjustified and politically motivated legal proceedings”Joe Biden then began to pardon them.
Former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Mark Milley, the former architect of the Biden administration’s strategy against Covid-19, Anthony Fauci, elected officials and officials who participated in a commission of inquiry on the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as the police officers who testified before this same commission, are part of the list.
A power enshrined in the Constitution
Preemptive presidential pardons are enshrined in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution. “The president […] will have the power to grant unlimited pardons, except in the event of impeachment proceedings […] before legal proceedings are initiated, or during their execution, or after conviction and judgment”indicates the text. The Constitution also specifies that clemency “can only be granted for offenses against the United States” in its entirety, meaning that crimes and misdemeanors committed in a particular state cannot qualify an individual for pardon by the president, including preemptively.
-However, preventive pardon should not denote guilt, as Joe Biden notes in his press release. “The granting of these pardons should not be interpreted as […] an admission of guilt for any offence. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to these public servants for their tireless commitment to our country.wrote the president.
The example of Richard Nixon
This is not the first time that the United States has experienced the application of a preventive pardon. In 1974, after the resignation of President Richard Nixon due to the Watergate scandal, his successor Gerald Ford pardoned him for any crimes he may have committed during his term, before he was indicted. Unlike the people preemptively pardoned by Joe Biden, who are not at all worried at the moment, Richard Nixon was indeed threatened with imminent legal proceedings.
Joe Biden will not have waited for the end of his mandate to use his power of pardon. Last December, he announced 39 pardons and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people, the largest number of acts of clemency declared in one day. On January 17, he said he had commuted nearly 2,500 sentences of those convicted of non-violent drug-related offenses. Also at the beginning of December, another pardon sparked controversy, that of the outgoing president’s own son, Hunter Biden, accused of tax fraud and false declarations for not having paid $1.4 million in taxes over the last decade. .
