
Roving Periscope: “He didn’t pardon himself,” Trump warns Biden!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Reacting to Joe Biden’s last-minute, pre-emptive pardons for his siblings and their spouses—claiming that had been subject to “attacks” to hurt him—President Donald Trump has warned his predecessor that he (Biden) had not pardoned himself.
In his first interview since Inauguration on Monday, he said Biden had not given himself a pre-emptive pardon that could guard him against any actions taken by the new administration, the media reported on Thursday.
“This guy went around giving everybody pardons, and you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn’t give himself a pardon. If you look at it, it all had to do with him,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
During his last days in office, outgoing Joe Biden had issued pre-emptive pardons for his siblings and their spouses saying that they had been “subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” and indicated that he thought such attacks would continue.
Biden also pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Chief Medical Advisor to then-President Trump in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, retired General Mark Milley, who antagonized Trump, members of the House Committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol as well as other allies who might suffer from “political revenge” likely exacted during the Republican leader’s second term in the White House.
“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,” the former President said in a statement.
Biden had also pardoned his son Hunter in connection with a federal case for tax and gun crimes.
In response to Biden granting pre-emptive pardons to his allies, Trump had earlier remarked that the former President had set an “unbelievable precedent” and that he was free to follow that precedent as well now. That’s what Trump also did this week.
During his campaign, Trump had suggested on multiple occasions that he would mobilize the US Justice Department to prosecute his political foes.
While his Attorney-General pick Pam Bondi stated that he would not take action solely for political purposes, she refused to rule out potential investigations into Trump’s adversaries, including the special counsel which brought two federal criminal cases against the Republican leader.
Trump said he also had the option to pre-emptively pardon himself in 2021 but he didn’t do it. He quoted officials as saying, “They said, ‘Sir, would you like to pardon everybody, including yourself?’ I said, “I’m not going to pardon anybody. We didn’t do anything wrong,’”
However, in one of his first decisions after taking the oath as the 47th President on Monday for a second, non-consecutive term of four years, Trump pardoned and commuted the prison sentences of the people charged with crimes in the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot. He also vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the more than 1,500 people who were charged with involvement in the Capitol Hill attacks.
This clemency has effectively wiped out the largest investigation in Justice Department history.
In 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled that while presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution for what could be considered official acts, this does not apply to their aides and allies.
The promise of a blanket pardon is being seen as a concern in the US as future presidents may 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.
However, the extent of the legal protection offered by the pardons may not fully shield the lawmakers or their staff from other types of inquiries, particularly from the US Congress.