WASHINGTON – With just hours left in office, President Joe Biden issued a series of pardons Monday morning to preemptively 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 January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and Metropolitan Police officers from Capitol Hill and DC who testified before that committee.
Panel members included Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was then a member of the House; former Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.; and incumbent Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
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Among the police officers who testified before the committee were Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges.
In a statement, Biden said that some of the people he preemptively pardoned were “threatened with criminal prosecution” and that he “cannot in good conscience do anything.”
“These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be subjected to unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” he wrote.
The president said Milley served the United States for more than 40 years and “led our Armed Forces through complex global security threats and strengthened our existing alliances while forging new ones.” Fauci, he said, saved lives by managing responses to HIV/AIDS and the Ebola and Zika viruses and then helped the country “confront a once-in-a-century pandemic,” referring to Covid.
Biden defended the members of the January 6 committee and sharply criticized the people (although he did not name Trump) who attacked and threatened them. The president-elect has said that members of the January 6 committee should be investigated and jailed.
“Rather than accept responsibility, those who carried out the January 6 attack have taken every opportunity to undermine and intimidate those who served on the Select Committee in an attempt to rewrite history, erase the stain of January 6 for partisan gain, and seek revenge, including by threatening criminal prosecution,” Biden wrote.
Biden said that “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 act of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputation and finances,” he said.
The pardons, the president said, should not be misinterpreted as an acknowledgment that these people committed crimes.
The recipients thanked Biden for the action. In a statement, Milley said he and his family are “deeply grateful for the president’s action today.”
After 43 years of uniformed service to the country, protecting and defending the Constitution, Milley said, “I do not wish to spend the remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who might unjustly seek retaliation for what I perceive as slights. I do not want to make my family, my friends, and those with whom I served endure the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”
Fauci said in a statement that he appreciated the action by Biden, who was one of seven presidents of both parties he had advised. He said he has been “the subject of threats of politically motivated 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 accusation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution against me. However, the fact is that the mere articulation of these unfounded threats and the possibility of them being acted upon, create a immeasurable and intolerable anguish for me and my family.
Dunn said he wishes the pardon “wasn’t necessary, but unfortunately, the political climate we find ourselves in now has made the need for one a reality. I, like all other public servants, was simply doing my job and defending my oath and I will always fulfill it.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, criticized Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci, with whom he has clashed repeatedly over the pandemic response.
“If there was ever any question about who is responsible 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 and said, “I will not rest until “The entire truth of the cover-up is exposed. Fauci’s pardon will only serve as an accelerant to break the veil of deception.”
