While he was in the Capitol grounds to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on Monday, January 20, Joe Biden preemptively pardoned several members of his family to protect them from potential “partisan prosecutions” of his successor.
“I cannot, in good conscience, do nothing.” Former President of the United States Joe Biden multiplied presidential pardons this Monday, January 20 before the inauguration that same day of Donald Trump.
Pardons granted preventively to elected officials, civil servants but also to members of his family to protect them from potential future “partisan” investigations or prosecutions carried out by his successor. Throughout his campaign, the new Republican president had in fact promised to take “revenge” on his political adversaries.
“Incessant threats”
The former Democratic president granted a preemptive presidential pardon, as permitted by Article 2 of the Constitution, to five members of his family even while he was at the Capitol to attend the inauguration of Donald Trump . Or only a few minutes before the latter’s swearing-in.
Concerned are his brother James Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, their respective spouses, as well as his brother Francis Biden, according to the official document published by the Department of Justice. This act grants them “a full and unconditional pardon for all non-violent offenses against the United States that they may have committed or participated in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon.” .
Note that these pardons only protect against prosecution at the federal level, and not against congressional investigations or tax investigations for example.
On December 1, Joe Biden also pardoned his son Hunter, one of the favorite targets of the American hard right, who had been convicted in two separate cases of illegal possession of a firearm and tax evasion.
“My family has been targeted with relentless attacks and threats, motivated only by the desire to get at me – the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to think that these attacks will stop,” argued the former president.
“He did it during my speech!”
Donald Trump did not fail to denounce the action of his predecessor.
“I didn’t know that he had granted pardon to his family, he did it during my speech, I mean, during my speech!”, he repeated to the press while he was in signing his first decrees in the Oval Office.
“All I could have said was ‘excuse me, I’d like to come back and talk some more’. This is obviously a bad precedent,” he added.
-On the line, Joe Biden also commuted to house arrest the life prison sentence of Leonard Peltier, 80, a Native American activist incarcerated for the 1975 homicide of two FBI agents, a fabricated case according to his defenders. He also pardoned two convicts who had served their sentences.
“We live in exceptional circumstances”
Early this Monday, several hours before the inauguration ceremony, Joe Biden also pardoned the former chief of staff of the armed forces, General Mark Milley, and the former architect of the White House strategy against Covid-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
General Milley, chief of staff of the armed forces under Donald Trump and then Joe Biden, warned during the campaign that the Republican billionaire was a “fascist through and through” and the “most dangerous person for this country” . Donald Trump had suggested that the officer had been guilty of a “betrayal” which in other times would have earned him the firing squad.
Dr. Fauci, whose outspokenness during the coronavirus pandemic often put him at odds with Donald Trump during his first term, has since been one of the most reviled figures within a party of the right and conspiracy movements.
Former Republican parliamentarian Liz Cheney was also pardoned, like all elected officials and civil servants who participated in the commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021. The police officers who testified before this commission are also affected by these graces.
“I believe in the rule of law and I am sure that the solidity of our judicial system will ultimately prevail in the face of political debates. But we live in exceptional circumstances and I cannot, in good conscience, do nothing “, explained the 82-year-old Democrat in a press release, to justify an exceptional initiative.
“Worryingly, state servants have been subjected to threats and intimidation for faithfully carrying out their duties,” he said. “Some were even threatened with legal action.”
Donald Trump denounced these pardons granted according to him to “people who are very, very guilty of very serious crimes”, in particular with reference to the members of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the assault on the Capitol.
By granting so many preventive pardons, Joe Biden took “an unprecedented measure in presidential history,” notes CNN. The risk now? Let Donald Trump use this precedent to protect his own allies from criminal prosecution in the future.
Juliette Brossault with AFP
