By Mike Huckabee
January 21, 2025
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There is nothing in living memory that compares with this.
On January 20, Inauguration Day 2025, Biden signed two waves of blanket pardons for those who might later be connected to federal criminal offenses. (He’d already pardoned son Hunter, in advance of his sentencing.) These included Anthony Fauci (!); retired Gen. Mark Milley; all nine members of the “Select” J6 committee who “investigated” Trump’s alleged role in the January 6 riot and are accused of destroying evidence and collaborating with witnesses; and some members of the Capitol and DC Metro Police who testified before that committee. Biden used the pretext that Trump might exact “revenge” on these people (translation: Trump might dare to impose the rule of law on people who have broken it).
Dr. Fauci’s stunning “full and unconditional” pardon includes “any offenses against the United States which he may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon, arising from or in any manner related to his service as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or the White House COVID-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.”
https://instapundit.com/697338/
For a satisfying moment of unintentional hilarity, let’s look back at what J6 “Select” Committee member Adam Kinzinger said just a couple of weeks ago about pardons: “I don’t want it...because the second you take a pardon, it looks like you’re guilty of something…” Indeed. So, is he going to turn down the pardon Biden has just handed him, or will he adopt the lame (and untrue) excuse of Trump exacting “revenge” so he can take cover behind a pardon after all? Here’s the video clip and some fun comments...
https://twitchy.com/samj/2025/01/20/kinzingers-snotty-commentary-about-needing-a-pardon-n2406986
Biden’s second wave of pardons, for his own extended family, reportedly took place just before Biden entered the Capitol Rotunda for Trump’s swearing in --- not long before he and Jill would be escorted onto the helicopter that would thankfully TAKE THEM AWAY (Ben Shapiro noted that the last helicopter departure from a disaster this big was in Vietnam.) It’s hard to imagine a more sniveling, cowardly move by a departing President. Here’s what Biden actually said in this order, and we’ll pause if you need to fall to the floor, laughing helplessly at the irony of it all:
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But 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 will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances.”
Tell it to the J6 detainees. The BABYLON BEE could not have phrased it better. Biden continued...
“For any nonviolent offenses against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon”...I give this “Executive Grant of Clemency” to “James B. Biden [Joe’s brother, Jim], Sara Jones Biden [Jim’s wife], Valerie Biden Owens [Joe’s sister], John T. Owens [Valerie’s husband], and Francis W. Biden [Joe’s other brother, Frank].”
And there’s that significant year of 2014 again. That’s the year that seems to have caught up son Hunter and other members of the Biden family.
https://instapundit.com/697333/
Among Biden’s many, many pardons and commutations, he also commuted the sentence of 80-year-old convicted murder Leonard Peltier, a native American who was convicted of killing two FBI agents in cold blood and later escaped from prison. He’ll be on home confinement.
FOX NEWS’ Sean Hannity had a fabulous segment on the pardons of family and cronies, including a clip from pre-emptively pardoned now-California Sen. Adam Schiff in 2020, talking hypothetically on MSNBC about pardons Trump might give...
Joy Reid: “Have you ever heard of somebody getting a [blanket] pre-emptive pardon who was innocent of all crime?...”
Schiff: “No….here, it’s an effort not only to prospectively pardon people for things they have not yet been charged with and may never be charged with, but also it’s the President’s own family...”
Sen. Chuck Schumer spoke about this as well, from the floor of the Senate: “The President’s reportedly asking his staff whether he can issue pre-emptive pardons for himself, his family members, Rudy Giuliani. There’s a simple answer: NO. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority.”
This just gets more and more hilarious. President Trump got such grief for just looking into doing things (and deciding against) that Biden actually DID on a massive scale.
When Biden was asked in 2020 about the idea of Trump issuing pre-emptive pardons, he said, “Well, it concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and, uh, injustice.” Presumably, at some point that concern went out the window.
Biden continued: “You’re not gonna see, in our administration, that kind of approach to pardons.” Yes, he actually said that. Apparently, he meant that his approach would be much MORE outrageous than Trump’s ever was.
And now, on his way out the door in 2025, Biden says of his pre-emptively pardoned family and friends, “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.” Really? Anthony Fauci and Liz Cheney? Very good summary here, highly recommended...
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/biden-trump-fauci/2025/01/20/id/1195711
As noted within, “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.”
And that’s the danger with this. Biden’s scorched-earth approach, if not modified by the courts, could have a disastrous effect on our rule of law in future administrations, as Jacob Sullum explains in his article for REASON. This is the one to read, though we would argue that members of the J6 committee do, in fact, deserve to be investigated for crimes, such as witness tampering and obstruction of justice. It might take the Supreme Court to determine whether members of Congress can be.
The big problem here is that Biden’s broad use of the pardon power “could easily become a shield” for a president’s allies and administration officials who commit crimes. (We’ll include his family, too.) Take someone like Fauci, who allegedly lied about U.S. funding of gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China. With this pardon, we’ll never know if prosecutors could have proved this beyond a reasonable doubt, and he’ll also never be held to account.
If these pardons stand, future lawless presidential cohorts will essentially be able to do anything they want and be pardoned on their way out the door. This is SO OBVIOUS, it’s hard to believe everyone doesn’t immediately grasp it.
Jonathan Turley will no doubt have a lot to say on this in the coming days. On Monday, he said, “Biden has long exercised situational ethics, and with his powers coming to an end, the situation demanded that he cash out before his credit ended. In granting these pardons, Biden was seeking to protect not just his family but also himself. He was the object of the influence peddling and repeatedly lied to bury the scandal.”
“Reporters are now fully visible as willing dupes in one of the greatest corruption scandals in the history of this country.” (Some are still buying, or pretending to buy, Biden’s pretense for the pardons.)
Turley calls Biden’s move “the ultimate sign of contempt for the intelligence of the American public and the integrity of his office.” What integrity?
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5096041-biden-pardons-family-corruption/
One way Biden’s pardons could backfire, though --- and we’ve talked about this --- is that they take Fifth Amendment protections away from people who no longer face criminal liability. Thus, if GOP committees continue their investigations, pardonees could find themselves on a congressional witness list, liable for prosecution if they don’t tell the truth (and Biden can’t let them wriggle out of that.) Time to get Dr. Fauci on the stand...
Of course, President Trump made news today with pardons, too, but in a good way, as his were a careful, case-by-case look at people who had obviously been targeted by a weaponized DOJ and railroaded in biased DC courtrooms. (That’s the kind of situation most people imagine when thinking of appropriate presidential pardons.) Most of these people had done precisely nothing and were nevertheless put through a legal nightmare simply because they supported Trump and were there that day.
These are the people Trump refers to as “the J6 hostages.” THE EPOCH TIMES has a good review...
Also, Trump has done something that should’ve happened years ago: he rescinded the security clearances of the 51 former intel officials who signed the “classic earmarks” letter about Hunter’s laptop being Russian disinformation, when they had not examined it and had no reason to conclude that. It was a political stunt, election interference that WORKED to elect Biden in 2020. Elon Musk is glad that “the hammer of justice has come”...
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881522438531670271
In addition to taking away their security clearances (which they need to make the big bucks as private contractors), Trump also ordered his DNI and CIA head to investigate and report to him within 90 days on any other inappropriate activity related to that letter and recommend “any disciplinary action” that should be taken. We bet those 51 are sorry they’re among the few Biden cronies in DC who didn’t get preemptively pardoned.
Finally, we’ve been making fun of Biden’s pardons and having a good laugh at his expense, but for those whose lives were disrupted by the J6 prosecutions conducted by his weaponized DOJ, it’s not a joke. Investigative reporter Steve Baker, who finally ended up pleading guilty when facing a trial in DC for committing journalism, speaks here in this brief, must-see video about those whose lives have been affected far more than his has, he says --- the people who lost everything: their homes, spouses, careers, years of their lives. (We would add that some even committed suicide.) In most cases, these were innocent people who did nothing more than “walk through an open door at the Capitol on January 6,” yet their lives were destroyed.
“Thank you, President Trump,” he says as he chokes back tears, “for ending this nightmare for so many people. Thank you.”
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