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President Joe Biden issued preventive pardons to dr. Anthony Faucigeneral Mark Milley, and members of Congress who served on the House committee investigating the attempted coup on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in one of his final acts before leaving the White House, facing political persecution by his future successor Donald Trump.
In a statement, Biden characterized each of the recipients as “dedicated, selfless public servants” on whom the nation relies “every day” and called them “the lifeblood of our democracy.”
Milley, he said, “has served our nation for more than 40 years, serving in multiple command and leadership positions and deploying to some of the most dangerous parts of the world to protect and defend democracy,” while also praising Fauci as someone who d has helped “countless lives by managing the government’s response to urgent health crises, including HIV/AIDS, as well as the Ebola and Zika viruses” during his half-century in public service.
Biden went on to praise the Jan. 6 House panel as fulfilling its mission of reporting the “facts, circumstances and causes” of the attack on the Capitol by a riotous mob of Trump supporters with “integrity and commitment to uncovering the truth.”
At the same time, he lamented that those he pardoned were “subjected to constant threats and intimidation for faithfully carrying out their duties” by the president-elect and his allies, and noted that Trump and other prominent Republicans — including members of his new cabinet — have called for recipients are prosecuted for various actions taken while in government service and thereafter.
“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,” Biden said.
He continued: “I believe in the rule of law and am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But these are exceptional circumstances and I cannot in good conscience do anything.”
Biden also noted that “baseless and politically motivated investigations” can and do “harm the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.”
“Even when individuals have done nothing wrong – and have actually done the right thing – and will eventually be exonerated, the mere fact that they are under investigation or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances,” he said, adding that he used his authority to pardon Milley, Fauci, members and staff of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, as well as a group of police officers who testified before the panel, former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, and police Metropolitan, DC in Washington Daniel Hodges and former police officer Michael Fanone.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be misconstrued as an admission that any person is involved in any crime, nor should their acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any crime. Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless dedication to our country,” Biden said.
Gonell, who is medically retired from the Capitol Police Department due to injuries sustained during the attack, said in a statement sent out The Independent via text message that he was “just doing his job and fulfilling my oath to defend this country” when he was attacked on January 6, 2021.
“We have protected all elected officials, regardless of their political party,” said Gonell, who also thanked Biden for “supporting our nation’s democracy, for your years of service to this country, and — in your final moments as commander in chief — issuing preemptive pardons for me and other loyal Americans,” he said. “I didn’t ask for a pardon and I didn’t do anything wrong. My family and I are grateful for your empathy and your guidance.”
Dunn, who withdrew from the department in 2022 to run unsuccessfully for a seat in the Maryland House of Representatives, told CBS News that he is “eternally grateful” to Biden, both for the pardon and for “his leadership and service to this nation.” .
“I wish this pardon wasn’t necessary, but unfortunately, the political climate we’re in now has made the need for it somewhat of a reality. I, like all other civil servants, was just doing my job and keeping my oath. I will always respect that,” he said.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Hodges — who still serves as a member of the D.C. Police Department — wrote that he was unable to comment because he was on duty for Inauguration Day.
Thompson and Cheney, who lost her House seat in 2022 to a Trump-backed primary challenger, said in a joint statement released on behalf of other committee members and staff that they wanted to “express our gratitude” to Biden for “recognizing that we and our families were continuously targeted not only by harassment, lies and threats of criminal violence, but also specific threats of criminal prosecution and imprisonment by members of the new administration, just because we were doing our job and honored our oaths.”
“Today we are pardoned not because we broke the law, but because we respected it,” they added.
The sweeping pardons represent an unprecedented use of the outgoing president’s pardon power and will rule out the possibility that any of the recipients will become the target of criminal investigations during Trump’s second term.
It is unclear whether all recipients will accept executive approvals. Under US law, a pardon must be freely accepted by the recipient to be effective. And some of the former members of the House of Representatives that Biden has now pardoned, including former GOP Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, have said they would not accept a pardon because under the law, accepting a pardon is considered an admission of guilt.
Earlier this month, Kinzinger said he did not want to be pardoned during the appearance The Late Show with Stephen Colbert because “he did nothing wrong”.
“If Donald Trump wants to go after me… Look, do I want him to go after me? Of course not. But if he chooses to do so, I will torture him twice as much in the back because I will continue to remind the American people from my prison cell that this is not the country we live in, that this was not the country the Constitution represents, and I will continue to call him names.” , he said.
Biden’s last-minute use of his pardon power comes on the heels of another controversial pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, who he cleared of an extensive list of tax and other crimes committed over a decade-long period.
It is likely to be one of the last official acts he will take before he leaves the White House for the last time as president and rides to the Capitol with Trump, who will sworn in as the 47th President of the United States at noon in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday afternoon. Trump has previously hinted that he may exact revenge on his many political enemies after returning to the Oval Office.