Joe Biden issues new pre-emptive pardons to stop Donald Trump’s ‘retribution’ as President
Donald Trump has attacked Joe Biden who took an extraordinary step to protect close family members and others to shield them from “politically motivated prosecutions”.
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In his final act as America’s president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to public servants and members of his own family, setting an extraordinary new precedent despite the pleas of his closest allies.
The move prompted a furious response from Donald Trump, with the pardons for Mr Biden’s siblings and their spouses dramatically announced by the White House while the outgoing president sat just metres from his successor during his inauguration ceremony.
It also marked a stunning about-face from four years ago, when Mr Biden warned Mr Trump not to pursue preemptive pardons for his family and friends, which the Republican ultimately decided against.
“You’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons,” the Democrat said at the time.
However, with just hours left in his presidency, he handed unconditional full pardons to the members of Congress and their staff who investigated the January 6 attack on the US Capitol that was perpetrated by Mr Trump’s supporters to block the transfer of power.
Mr Biden also pardoned retired Army general and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley, as well as Anthony Fauci, America’s top medical official during the Covid pandemic.
“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,’ he said.
Mr Trump had long vowed retribution against those pardoned by Mr Biden, saying Mr Milley – who served in the top military role during his first administration – deserved to be executed for warning a Chinese counterpart not to take advantage of the January 6 crisis in 2021.
And he had said Liz Cheney, the top Republican on the January 6 congressional committee, should be prosecuted for treason.
But former Democratic president Bill Clinton had argued against the pardons, as did Adam Schiff, another January 6 committee member who said it was “a precedent we don’t want to set”.
Speaking after his inauguration, Mr Trump said he had been talked out of attacking Mr Biden’s decision in his formal address, but that the pardons were for “political thugs” who were “very, very guilty of very bad crimes”.
He called Ms Cheney a “crying lunatic” and asked: “Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley?” Moments later, the retired general’s official portrait was taken down at the Pentagon.
Mr Biden also issued blanket pardons for his brother James and wife Sara, his sister Valerie and husband John, and his brother Frank. James Biden had been tangled up in Republican investigations of the questionable foreign business dealings of Mr Biden’s son Hunter.
During the election campaign, Mr Trump promised to “appoint a real special prosecutor” to go after what he dubbed “the Biden crime family”.
Mr Biden, who tried to talk Mr Trump out of attacking his enemies during their Oval Office meeting after the election, 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,” he said in a statement.
None of the people he pardoned had been investigated or charged with any crimes, and he maintained his decision did not suggest they “engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense”.
Mr Trump’s deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich called it “the greatest attack on America’s justice system in history” and a “dangerous and unreversible erosion of American norms”.
And Barack Obama’s top strategist David Axelrod suggested the decision could rob Mr Biden of being remembered for his “important, lasting achievements”, condemning what he said were “tragic, self-inflicted wounds”.
Trump has regularly complained of being the victim of “lawfare” under the Biden administration after being criminally prosecuted for offences, including trying to subvert the 2020 election.
The move was the latest in a slew of pardons and clemencies Biden has granted in his final days in office, including commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people in one day -- and the controversial pardon of his son Hunter.
Trump has described jailed supporters who took part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol as “patriots” and “political prisoners” and said he plans to issue pardons for some of them.
Former president Richard Nixon received a preemptive pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford, after resigning in disgrace in 1974 because of the Watergate scandal.
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