The outgoing president aims to protect a group of people - who he says did no wrong - from prosecution.

During his final hours in office, US President Joe Biden issued a number of pre-emptive pardons to prevent what he called “unjustified… politically motivated prosecutions”.

The pardons were for public officials including Anthony Fauci - who led the American response to Covid-19 - and people who investigated the riot at the US Capitol building in 2021.

Biden said this did not imply any “wrongdoing” by the group, but they faced the threat of baseless investigations as his rival Donald Trump returned to the US presidency.

Biden’s pardons cover all members of the House Select Committee investigating the riot - which includes Liz Cheney - as well as their staff members and the officers who testified.

Biden also issued a pre-emptive pardon to Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff, who last year described Trump as “fascist to the core”.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    21 hours ago

    …yeah nice gesture I guess, but putting up legal barriers against an administration that doesn’t respect the law is a bit like a “No guns allowed” sign in a US elementary school.

    We need more than legal.

  • ZombiFrancisEnglish
    9·
    19 hours ago

    They really don’t understand how conservative media works. These are effectively indictments and admissions of guilt and conspiracy to any conservative pundit the last four fucking decades.

    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      18 hours ago

      And nevertheless still necessary to help protect these individuals from violent, institutional political persecution.

      Until we start relentlessly clearing government and society of authoritarians, paper-thin protections like this are all we have, and we are ever likely to have again.

    • Madison420@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      16 hours ago

      They know conservative media, this was going to happen regardless of the pardon but at least now there is a massive precedential hurdle in the way of actual prosecution. Investigate away, it won’t come to anything because it can’t.

  • Drusas@fedia.io
    1·
    12 hours ago

    I can’t believe that anyone on the fediverse doesn’t already know this

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    1·
    19 hours ago

    Its to protect them from the projection trump and republicans do which would be weaponizing indictments. Which they had already kinda started with fauci. People talk about them doing illegal things but they have so far managed to do everything technically above board. Trump obviously looked to bribe a foreign power for personal gain but the legal process did not give him a penalty. There is no process that I know of to bypass a pardon like you can simply not penalize an impeachment.