WASHINGTON — With just hours remaining in office, President Joe Biden issued a slew of pardons Monday morning to pre-emptively protect people President-elect Donald Trump had threatened.
Biden pardoned former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, members and staff of the committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before that committee.
The panel’s members included Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was then a House member; former Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.; and current Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
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The police officers who testified before the committee included Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges.
In a statement, Biden said that some of the people he pre-emptively pardoned were “threatened with criminal prosecutions” and that he “cannot in good conscience do nothing.”
“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 wrote.
The president said Milley served the U.S. for more than 40 years and “guided our Armed Forces through complex global security threats and strengthened our existing alliances while forging new ones.” Fauci, he said, saved lives managing responses to HIV/AIDS and the Ebola and Zika viruses and then he helped the country “tackle a once-in-a-century pandemic,” referring to Covid.
Biden defended the members of the Jan. 6 committee and slammed people — though he didn’t name Trump — who have attacked and threatened them. The president-elect has said members of the Jan. 6 should be investigated and jailed.
“Rather than accept accountability, those who perpetrated the January 6th attack have taken every opportunity to undermine and intimidate those who participated in the Select Committee in an attempt to rewrite history, erase the stain of January 6th for partisan gain, and seek revenge, including by threatening criminal prosecutions,” Biden wrote.
Biden said “baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.”
“Even when individuals have done nothing wrong — and in fact have done the right thing — and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances,” he said.
The pardons, the president said, shouldn’t be misinterpreted as an acknowledgment that these people engaged in wrongdoing.
In a statement, Milley said he and his family are “deeply grateful for the President’s action today.”
“After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights,” he said. “I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”
Fauci said in a statement that he appreciated the action by Biden, who he said was among seven presidents, from both parties, he had advised. He said he’s been “the subject of politically motivated threats of investigation and prosecution.”
“There is absolutely no basis for these threats,” he said. “I have committed no crime and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me. The fact is, however, that the mere articulation of these baseless threats, and the potential that they will be acted upon, create immeasurable and intolerable distress for me and my family.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, criticized Biden’s pre-emptive pardon of Fauci, with whom he has repeatedly clashed over the pandemic response.
“If there was ever any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the COVID pandemic, Biden’s pardon of Fauci forever seals the deal,” Paul wrote in a post on X. He suggested he would investigate Fauci, saying, “I will not rest until the entire truth of the coverup is exposed. Fauci’s pardon will only serve as an accelerant to pierce the veil of deception.”
