After some on the right urged that his two siblings and sister should be prosecuted, Joe Biden announced a series of broad preemptive pardons for them only minutes before he left office.
Ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony, where he was sworn in as the 47th president on Monday, Biden made the remark, which he previously stated would not be representative of his administration.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden stated in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
Biden opposed the idea of an outgoing president preemptively pardoning family members in a 2020 CNN interview. It was implied at the time that Trump might make such a move.
Biden stated at the time, “I’m concerned about the precedent it sets and how the rest of the world views us as a country of laws and justice.” You won’t see that kind of approach in our government when it comes to pardons.
Republicans immediately accused the pardons of being hypocritical. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign, Alex Pfeiffer, wrote on X that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer cautioned Trump against pardoning his children in 2020 before he left office and compared preemptive pardons to an abuse of authority.
The House Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., criticized the departing president for the action. Comer oversaw an inquiry of the Biden family’s global economic activities.
Comer stated in a statement that President Biden’s preemptive pardons for the Biden Crime Family are a confession of their corruption as they defrauded the American people in order to benefit themselves. “Our investigation revealed that at least ten members of the Biden Crime Family and their associates raked in over $30 million by selling Joe Biden s influence to corrupt foreign entities and individuals in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan.”
After he and his White House constantly stated that he would not do so, Biden previously pardoned his son, Hunter, of federal weapons and tax charges.
Many Democrats were not pleased with that decision. Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, recently told USA Today that Biden’s choice to pardon Hunter was incredibly careless. Schiff, who has been singled out by Trump and his supporters after being a member of the House committee that looked into the attack at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was also pardoned by Biden on Monday.
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“I support the rule of law and have faith that our judicial system’s power will finally triumph over politics. However, the lives, safety, and financial stability of the targeted individuals and their families are severely damaged by irrational and politically driven inquiries. The sheer act of being looked into or charged can cause irreversible harm to a person’s money and reputation, even if they have done nothing wrong and will be found not guilty, Biden added in his remarks.
As he left office Monday, Biden issued a number of preemptive pardons, including those for Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, other members and staff of the committee that looked into the Jan. 6 attack, and Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the committee. Biden also pardoned five family members.
“That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden,” Biden said in a press release. “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”