Biden preemptively pardons Fauci, Cheney and more as Trump inauguration looms

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Jan 20, 2025

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WASHINGTON — President Biden Monday pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, ex-Rep. Liz Cheney and members of the Jan. 6 committee in the waning hours of his term to protect them against retribution by incoming President Trump.

With Trump taking power at noon, Biden took dramatic action to protect them from Trump’s stated goal of exacting revenge against perceived enemies.

The sweeping pardons protect some of the most prominent Trump critics in public service and Congress from being investigated or prosecuted for actions the incoming president says were improper or even criminal.

Biden insisted in an early morning statement that the preemptive pardons should not be taken as an acknowledgment of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

“Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country,” Biden said in a statement.

The pardons, announced with just hours left in Biden’s presidency, have been the subject of heated debate for months at the highest levels of the White House.

The move comes as Trump has called for revenge against an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his own alleged misdeeds during his previous four year term in office.

Trump and his MAGA allies despise Fauci for spearheading the public health measures that helped the nation defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the nation’s most famous infectious disease doctor worked side by side with Trump during his first term.

The soon-to-be commander-in-chief accuses Milley of being a warmonger who undermined him during his first four years in the White House.

“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said, adding that “Even when individuals have done nothing wrong, and in fact have done the right thing … the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.”

Biden has used the presidential pardon power in the broadest and most untested way possible: to pardon those who have not even been investigated yet.

Trump, who takes office at noon, has promised to pardon many of those involved in the violent and bloody Jan. 6, 2021, attack, which injured roughly 140 law enforcement officers.

He has also vowed to turn the tables on his critics by putting them under the legal microscope.

It’s unclear whether those pardoned by Biden would need to apply for the clemency or even accept the offer at all. Any acceptance could be seen as a tacit admission of guilt or wrongdoing, validating years of attacks by Trump and his supporters.

Milley and Fauci both issued statements thanking Biden for the pardons.

Fauci was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health for nearly 40 years, including during Trump’s term in office and later served as Biden’s chief medical advisor until his retirement in 2022. He helped coordinate the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic by Trump’s side but fell out of favor with him.

Fauci has become a target of intense hatred from Trump’s right-wing allies, who blame him for mask mandates and other policies they believe infringed on their rights, even as hundreds of thousands of people were dying.

Mark Milley is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He later called Trump a fascist and detailed Trump’s conduct around the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Biden also extended pardons to members and staff of the Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack, as well as the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the committee about their experiences that day, overrun by an angry, violent mob of Trump supporters.

The committee spent 18 months investigating Trump and the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. It was lead by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), and Cheney, a onetime GOP rising star who broke with Trump over the attack.