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U.S. President Joe Biden reacts as he speaks from the Roosevelt Room on the jobs report and the state of the economy at the White House in Washington, U.S., on January 10, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
President Joe Biden on Monday he issued a pardon for Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milleythe members of Congress who investigated the January 6 Revolution of the Capitol and others that he said are “baseless” threats aimed at political ends.
The wave of preemptive pardons came hours before the president-elect Donald Trump – which he called for some of his political enemies to be imprisoned – assumes office.
“These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the target of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” Biden said in a press release.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do anything,” he said.
The outgoing Democratic president also said he is pardoning the staff who served on the House select committee on January 6 and the police officers who testified before him.
Biden’s statement stressed that pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual has engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should the acceptance be misinterpreted as an admission of guilt for any offense.”
Fauci led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and was the face of the US response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic, which began under Trump in early 2020. Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff starting in 2019, even under Trump.
Both figures eventually became par for Trump and his Republican supporters.
Trump and Fauci fell out even before the November 2020 election, as the then-president pushed back against public health restrictions that Fauci and other experts supported.
Trump in 2023 Milley accused of treason after it was reported that he had called Chinese officials in the final days of the Trump administration to reassure them about the political and military stability of the United States. Milley has defending that call.
“My family and I are very grateful for the president’s action today,” Milley said in a statement later Monday morning.
“After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not want to spend the remaining time that the Lord grants me to fight those who may unjustly seek retribution for perceived slights,” he said. .
