President Biden on Monday pardoned Anthony Fauci, MD, using the extraordinary powers of his office in his final hours to guard against potential “revenge” by the incoming Trump administration.
The decision comes after Donald Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Biden also pardoned retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack. Trump has selected Cabinet nominees who backed his election lies and who have pledged to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”
Fauci was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH for nearly 40 years, including during Trump’s term in office and later served as Biden’s chief medical advisor until his retirement in 2022. He helped coordinate the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and raised Trump’s ire when he resisted Trump’s untested public health notions. Fauci has since become a target of intense hatred and vitriol from people on the right, who blame him for mask mandates and other policies they believe infringed on their rights, even as hundreds of thousands of people were dying.
It’s unclear whether those pardoned by Biden would need to apply for the clemency or even accept the offer at all. Any acceptance could be seen as a tacit admission of guilt or wrongdoing, validating years of attacks by Trump and his supporters, even though those who have been pardoned have not been formally accused of any crimes.
“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said, adding that “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.”
The pardons, announced with just hours left in his presidency, have been the subject of heated debate for months at the highest levels of the White House. It’s customary for a president to grant clemency at the end of his term, but those acts of mercy are usually offered to Americans who have been convicted of crimes. Biden has used the power in the broadest and most untested way possible: to pardon those who have not even been investigated yet. The decision lays the groundwork for an even more expansive use of pardons by Trump and future presidents.
While the Supreme Court last year ruled that the president enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for what could be considered official acts, the president’s aides and allies enjoy no such shield. There are fears that Trump or future presidents could use the promise of a blanket pardon to encourage allies to take actions they might otherwise resist for fear of running afoul of the law.
Trump, who takes office at noon, has promised to, in his first moments as president, pardon many of those involved in the violent and bloody Jan. 6, 2021, attack, which injured roughly 140 law enforcement officers.
Mark Milley is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He later called Trump a fascist and detailed Trump’s conduct around the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. He said he was grateful to Biden for a pardon so he no longer has to worry about “retribution.”
Biden also extended pardons to members and staff of the Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack, as well as the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the committee about their experiences that day, overrun by an angry, violent mob of Trump supporters.
Biden is not the first to consider such preemptive pardons — Trump aides considered them for him and his supporters involved in his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that culminated in the violent riot at the Capitol. But Trump’s pardons never materialized before he left office 4 years ago.
Gerald Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute pardon” in 1974 to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, over the Watergate scandal. He believed a potential trial would “cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States,” as written in the pardon proclamation.
Source link : https://www.medpagetoday.com/washington-watch/washington-watch/113850
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Publish date : 2025-01-20 13:43:10
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