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Biden pardons | BIDEN ISSUES PREEMPTIVE PARDONS - Family, Fauci, J6 Committee, Others

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President Biden pardoned his siblings just minutes before leaving office on Monday.

The pardon applies to James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens, and Francis Biden, the White House announced. The president argues that his family could be subject to "politically motivated investigations" after he leaves office.
 
nycfan said:
Especially if the SCOTUS remains firm on presidential immunity. Do whatever you want and preemptive pardon everyone on the way out the door.
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How is this a precedent? Sotomayor already addressed this exact scheme in her dissent, and everybody knows about it anyway.

Plus, it's not new. HW Bush preemptively pardoned anyone connected to Iran Contra on the way out.
 
Well.....Fauci has his place in history as the first federal government scientist to be pardoned.
 
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The difference is a pardon for anything you have done versus anything you could do after the pardon
 
aGDevil2k said:
The difference is a pardon for anything you have done versus anything you could do after the pardon
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What difference? A preemptive pardon is for acts that have occurred, but prosecution for those acts has not yet begun. There are no pardons for conduct that hasn't happened yet.
 
superrific said:
What difference? A preemptive pardon is for acts that have occurred, but prosecution for those acts has not yet begun. There are no pardons for conduct that hasn't happened yet.
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That's what some people on here are talking about
 
Mulberry Heel said:
Yeah, complaining about Biden setting negative precedents after Trump 1.0 and now 2.0 is rich. Trump is wrecking pretty much every precedent and tradition set by his predecessors in many areas, and nearly all of what he's doing is negative, imo. If Biden wants to keep people like Fauci safe from being endlessly harassed by Trumpers until the poor man dies then so be it.
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On the face of these pardons, I'm against them because of the precedent they set and the potential for future abuse.

However, here in the real world, Biden couldn't let good folks be harassed and potentially prosecuted for doing their jobs, so this is what we're left with.

But the blame for all of this lies with Trump and his enablers. If they weren't threatening to bend the power of government to nothing more than a retribution campaign against Trump's enemies - real and largely imagined - then Biden wouldn't be in the situation of feeling like these pardons are necessary. This is simply another place where Trump has broken our governmental structures and the right complains when Dems do anything to protect people from the fallout.
 

Biden pardons his family in final minutes in office​


Biden pardoned his brother, James Biden; James’ wife, Sara Jones Biden; his younger sister, Valerie Biden Owens; Owens’ husband, John Owens; and his other brother, Francis Biden.

"...“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a press release.

He also pardoned Gerald Lundergan, the former chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, and former South Carolina Councilman Ernest Cromartie. The departing president also commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents in 1975. ..."
 
"...In Monday’s press release, Biden said, “My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me—the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”

“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” he said.

“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.”

“That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden,” Biden said. ..."
 
Definitely makes it a lot easier for people to crow about the "Biden crime family" when he felt the need to preemptively pardon his family members. As with the Hunter pardon, I understand his actions as a human being but politically it's just playing right into Trump's hands. Now Trump doesn't have to worry about satisfying the parts of his bloc who actually wanted to prosecute these people, instead he can just say "oh I totally would have prosecuted them if not for the pardons, Joe knew they were guilty so he pardoned them."
 
rodoheel said:
Definitely makes it a lot easier for people to crow about the "Biden crime family" when he felt the need to preemptively pardon his family members. As with the Hunter pardon, I understand his actions as a human being but politically it's just playing right into Trump's hands. Now Trump doesn't have to worry about satisfying the parts of his bloc who actually wanted to prosecute these people, instead he can just say "oh I totally would have prosecuted them if not for the pardons, Joe knew they were guilty so he pardoned them."
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On the flip side, do you let your family be harassed and possibly prosecuted for realistically nothing more than being related to you when the Trump propaganda network would vilify Joe Biden and his family anyway?

Again, these are not pardons that anyone should want to see, but Trump and his devotion to seeking retribution has made them necessary.
 
SnoopRob said:
On the flip side, do you let your family be harassed and possibly prosecuted for realistically nothing more than being related to you when the Trump propaganda network would vilify Joe Biden and his family anyway?

Again, these are not pardons that anyone should want to see, but Trump and his devotion to seeking retribution has made them necessary.
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That's why I said I understand the pardons as a human being but dislike them politically. I would be tempted to protect my family in that situation too, and maybe I would do it. But candidly the future of our country is more important than whether members of Joe Biden's family are harassed by politically motivated prosecutions. And from a political perspective I think it would be much better to put Trump in the difficult position of pursuing what I suspect would largely be farcical and unpopular prosecutions of the extended Biden family, or having to explain why he isn't doing it. Now he is not only spared that dilemma, but can turn the whole thing to his advantage.

Asking someone to put their own family at risk for the sake of the country is not an easy ask, or really a fair one. As I said, I don't know what I would do in his position. But in terms of a trolley problem-type analysis, we should all at some level be able to put the interests of the country over the interests of our immediate family.
 
rodoheel said:
That's why I said I understand the pardons as a human being but dislike them politically. I would be tempted to protect my family in that situation too, and maybe I would do it. But candidly the future of our country is more important than whether members of Joe Biden's family are harassed by politically motivated prosecutions. And from a political perspective I think it would be much better to put Trump in the difficult position of pursuing what I suspect would largely be farcical and unpopular prosecutions of the extended Biden family, or having to explain why he isn't doing it. Now he is not only spared that dilemma, but can turn the whole thing to his advantage.

Asking someone to put their own family at risk for the sake of the country is not an easy ask, or really a fair one. As I said, I don't know what I would do in his position. But in terms of a trolley problem-type analysis, we should all at some level be able to put the interests of the country over the interests of our immediate family.
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Imo, the way the whole country has dumped on Biden after the job he (or the administration he picked) did, I don't blame him for not taking another hit. He's had enough of them in his life and enough of them have been directly to his family that I understand why he would do it. Politics and country be damned. He's put enough work and pain into the country and his work to walk away the way he wants to.
 
finesse said:
Imo, the way the whole country has dumped on Biden after the job he (or the administration he picked) did, I don't blame him for not taking another hit. He's had enough of them in his life and enough of them have been directly to his family that I understand why he would do it. Politics and country be damned. He's put enough work and pain into the country and his work to walk away the way he wants to.
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Yeah, I've about had it with the liberals who are also shitting on Biden. Yes, the election of 2024 was a fucking catastrophe. It doesn't make it right to dump on a lifelong public service who has served with integrity and devotion to country, and inherited probably the biggest mess that any president ever has (save possibly for Lincoln, depending on what you mean by inherited). He did a pretty good job all told.
 
rodoheel said:
Definitely makes it a lot easier for people to crow about the "Biden crime family" when he felt the need to preemptively pardon his family members. As with the Hunter pardon, I understand his actions as a human being but politically it's just playing right into Trump's hands. Now Trump doesn't have to worry about satisfying the parts of his bloc who actually wanted to prosecute these people, instead he can just say "oh I totally would have prosecuted them if not for the pardons, Joe knew they were guilty so he pardoned them."
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Yeah, I hear you, but unfortunately we don't live in the 90s anymore. The RW media has turned over half of Americans into a bloodthirsty cult whose only joy left in life is seeing Democrats in pain. Nothing is out of bounds for these people. And neither morals nor the conventional rules of law mean a thing to them. I would have done the same if I were Biden. And I'm not even a Democrat.
 
rodoheel said:
That's why I said I understand the pardons as a human being but dislike them politically. I would be tempted to protect my family in that situation too, and maybe I would do it. But candidly the future of our country is more important than whether members of Joe Biden's family are harassed by politically motivated prosecutions. And from a political perspective I think it would be much better to put Trump in the difficult position of pursuing what I suspect would largely be farcical and unpopular prosecutions of the extended Biden family, or having to explain why he isn't doing it. Now he is not only spared that dilemma, but can turn the whole thing to his advantage.

Asking someone to put their own family at risk for the sake of the country is not an easy ask, or really a fair one. As I said, I don't know what I would do in his position. But in terms of a trolley problem-type analysis, we should all at some level be able to put the interests of the country over the interests of our immediate family.
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If, at the end of the day or decade, these pardons would make a real difference in the future of our country, I might agree with you, but the reality is they almost certainly won’t.

Trump and the right-wing propaganda networks will make a big deal of them, but it’s not like Trump & company wouldn’t have tried to violate every rule of law if Biden hadn’t done this. It’s not like these pardons are the breaking point for Trump striving to be a dictator, he’s already made that clear. It’s not like this is the breaking point for Republicans to turn against the idea of democracy, they’ve already done that. And it’s not like this is the turning point where the US voter decides that authoritarian fascism is ok, because they’ve already done that.

In the long run, this will generate a lot of sound and fury, but won’t signify much at all. Trump was already going to grift and marginalize minorities and try to break the government, this affects none of that. All this does is add one more data point that Trump has broken our democracy and our government while hopefully providing some protection to a few innocent people along the way.
 
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