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WASHINGTON — With just hours remaining in office, President Joe Biden issued a slew of pardons Monday morning to pre–emptively protect people President-elect Donald Trump had threatened.
Biden pardoned former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley; Dr. Anthony Fauci; members and staffers of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol; and Capitol and Washington police officers who testified before the committee.
The panel’s members were Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was then a House member; former Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.; and current Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
Follow live politics coverage of Trump’s inauguration
The police officers who testified before the committee included Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges.
Just minutes before he left office, Biden also pre-emptively pardoned more members of his own family, including his two brothers and his sister, saying they had been subject to attacks “motivated solely by a desire to hurt me.” Biden was widely criticized last month for pardoning his son Hunter Biden, who was set to be sentenced on federal gun and tax evasion charges — something the former president had repeatedly said he would not do.
Trump reacted to the initial pardons of the Jan. 6 committee members and others in a text message to NBC News on Monday, saying, “It is disgraceful,” and claiming without evidence, “Many are guilty of MAJOR CRIMES!”
In remarks before his supporters at the Capitol after his formal inaugural address, Trump railed against the pardons. “Why are we trying to help a guy like Millie? … What he said, terrible. … Why are we helping some of the people? Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean, Liz Cheney is a disaster. She’s a crying lunatic.”
Biden said in his statement announcing the pardons that some of the people he pre-emptively pardoned were “threatened with criminal prosecutions” and that he “cannot in good conscience do nothing.”
“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,” he wrote.
Biden said Milley served the United States for more than 40 years and “guided our Armed Forces through complex global security threats and strengthened our existing alliances while forging new ones.” Fauci, he said, saved lives managing responses to HIV/AIDS and the Ebola and Zika viruses and then he helped the country “tackle a once-in-a-century pandemic,” referring to Covid.
Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs under both Trump and Biden, called Trump “a fascist to the core,“ according to a book by journalist Bob Woodward.
Biden defended the members of the Jan. 6 committee and slammed people — though he didn’t name Trump — who have attacked and threatened them. Trump has said members of the Jan. 6 committee should be investigated and jailed.
“Rather than accept accountability, those who perpetrated the January 6th attack have taken every opportunity to undermine and intimidate those who participated in the Select Committee in an attempt to rewrite history, erase the stain of January 6th for partisan gain, and seek revenge, including by threatening criminal prosecutions,” Biden wrote.
Biden said that “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 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,” he said.
The pardons, he said, shouldn’t be misinterpreted as an acknowledgment that those people engaged in wrongdoing.
The recipients thanked Biden. In a statement, Milley said he and his family are “deeply grateful for the President’s action today.”
After 43 years of service in uniform to the country, protecting and defending the Constitution, Milley said, “I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights. I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”
Fauci said in a statement that he appreciated the action by Biden, who was one of seven presidents, from both parties, he had advised. He said he has been “the subject of politically motivated threats of investigation and prosecution.”
“There is absolutely no basis for these threats,” he said. “I have committed no crime and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me. The fact is, however, that the mere articulation of these baseless threats, and the potential that they will be acted upon, create immeasurable and intolerable distress for me and my family.”
Thompson and Cheney, who were chair and vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee respectively, said in a joint statement on behalf of all panel members that they were pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it.”
“We are not deterred, we have never been deterred, and we will never be deterred by threats of criminal violence or criminal prosecution, and we are encouraged greatly for the future of the rule of law by the existence of the Constitution’s sweeping Speech and Debate Clause as well as this general pardon by President Biden of our Committee and its excellent staff.”
The police officers who fought off rioters on Jan. 6 thanked Biden, including Dunn, who said he wished the pardon “weren’t necessary, but unfortunately, the political climate we are in now has made the need for one somewhat of a reality. I, like all of the other public servants, was just doing my job and upholding my oath, and I will always honor that.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, criticized Biden’s pre-emptive pardon of Fauci, with whom he has repeatedly clashed over the pandemic response.
“If there was ever any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the COVID pandemic, Biden’s pardon of Fauci forever seals the deal,” Paul wrote on X. He suggested he would investigate Fauci, saying, “I will not rest until the entire truth of the coverup is exposed. Fauci’s pardon will only serve as an accelerant to pierce the veil of deception.”
Rebecca Shabad is a politics reporter for NBC News based in Washington.
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