A protective shield against possible revenge. Before leaving the White House for good on Monday, President Joe Biden granted preemptive pardons to prominent critics of President-elect Donald Trump and members of his own family, using an extraordinary executive prerogative.
Early Monday morning, the 46th President of the United States signed clemency for General Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci and members of Congress who served on the committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. minutes before receiving Donald Trump at the White House for tea, Biden signed the executive act granting this preemptive pardon to his two brothers, James and Francis, to his sister Valerie, who was one of the directors of all his campaigns, as well as his sister-in-law Sara and his brother-in-law John. They cannot be prosecuted for “any non-violent offense against the United States that they committed or in which they participated during the period from January 1, 2014 to the day of signing of this pardon” .
These pardons, which come in the final hours of Biden’s presidency, constitute a stunning demonstration of American presidential power, capable of protecting before the facts are accused of the people targeted.
But Trump has sworn revenge against all those he believes stood in his way in 2020. And in “exceptional circumstances,” “I cannot, in good conscience, do nothing,” Biden wrote in a communicated on the first series of pardons. “Unfounded and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families,” justifies the Democrat.
Both Cheney and Milley warned of Trump’s omnipotence
Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for decades, including during the Covid epidemic during Trump’s first presidency, has been widely criticized, and accused by very close to Trump, including his loyalist Peter Navarro, of having created the virus in Chinese laboratories to put American freedom at risk. As for Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s first term, he contradicted the Republican president on the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. In his retirement speech in 2023, he also described the former president as a “potential dictator”.
In a statement to CNN, Milley said he and his family were “deeply grateful” for Biden’s action. “After forty-three years of faithful uniformed service to our nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend my remaining time fighting those who might unjustly seek revenge for what they perceive to be slights,” he confided.
VideoJoe Biden welcomes Donald Trump to the White House before his inauguration
-Representatives Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney enjoy the same protection. The latter, a Republican opponent of Trump, had been the subject of threats from the new president. The daughter of the former vice-president of the United States and former Republican Party official in the House of Representatives, had supported Kamala Harris. In November, Trump suggested putting her “in front of a gun with nine barrels shooting at her.”
Former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn thanked Biden for his decision. He was part of the first group of officers to publicly testify before Congress about the assault of January 6, 2021, he then became involved in politics alongside the Democrats.
As for Joe Biden’s family, they have been “subjected to incessant attacks and threats, motivated solely by the desire to harm me – the worst form of partisan politics.” Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe that these attacks will stop,” he warns in a second press release.
The Trump camp denounces a “group of accomplices” protected from justice
No president has previously granted preventive pardons on such a scale. When President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, the 37th president faced a real threat of legal action. None of the candidates on Biden’s list appeared to be under imminent threat of legal action, but Biden believed the threat was significant. Presidents do not have the authority to pardon people who commit offenses against the laws of any of the states comprising the United States, so Biden’s clemency will only protect his loved ones from allegations of federal crimes. Trump supporters have already suggested summoning Fauci and Milley, in particular, to Congress, to “test the constitutional scope of these pardons”.
Taylor Budowich, Trump’s new deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel, said Biden’s pardons “will go down in history as the greatest attack on the American justice system.” “With the stroke of a pen, he unilaterally protected a group of political accomplices from the arm of justice,” he denounced on X.
In an interview with USA Today on January 8, Joe Biden said he told Donald Trump, when he received him in the Oval Office after his victory in November, that “there was no reason, and that it was counterintuitive for him to go back and try to settle the score.” “The idea that he punishes people who do not respect what he considers to be a policy related to his well-being is scandalous,” the Democratic president warned last week to journalists.
