Biden pardons Fauci and Milley in an effort to guard against potential 'revenge' by Trump
Biden pardons Fauci and Milley in an effort to guard against potential 'revenge' by Trump
President Joe Biden has pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, using the extraordinary powers of his office in his final hours to guard against potential revenge by the incoming Trump administration.
Summary
In his final hours as president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the Jan. 6 Committee, aiming to shield them from potential retaliation by the incoming Trump administration.
Trump has hinted at targeting those who opposed him or investigated his actions.
Biden stressed that the pardons do not imply wrongdoing but protect reputations and finances from politically motivated investigations.
This unprecedented move reflects concerns about threats to democracy under Trump's return to power.
The fact that this is necessary is just mind blowing.
The fact that they recognize this is necessary, yet still just willingly handed over power...
Watch him try and do it anyway, challenging the pardons in court saying pe-emptive pardons shouldn't count, only to backtrack when he realizes it means it will make the blanket pardon he wrote for himself invalid too.
Watch him try and do it anyway, challenging the pardons in court saying pe-emptive pardons shouldn’t count, only to backtrack when he realizes it means it will make the blanket pardon he wrote for himself invalid too.
That's not how this works if you've been paying attention to our legal system.
Don't get me wrong.....Trump absolutely will try to have these pardons challenged. But it's not like the courts are just going to remind him that it won't work for him either when he tries it. They'll just wait until he does, then carve out a special exemption that applies only to Trump. That's how the law works.
He's likely trying to throw down as many speed bumps as possible. Individually, they won't do much. Each will act as a distraction, a slight delay. Against most people in his position, they would be useless. Trump isn't most people however. He will bite and get distracted by the chew toy. It's likely about all Biden can do to limit the damage a little.
Shhhh don't remind him about the last part. Have him challenge blanket pardons and then let us enjoy it being used against him.
What a world we live in where we have to preemptively issue presidential pardons to people who have not only not committed any crimes but have served the public's interest for their entire lives
Literally made their lives 1000x harder just because they were honest, dedicated, and tried to do the right thing. Going after them is despicable.
It's un-be-lievable, quite honestly.
Welcome to donvict's Merica.
Jfc
I'm not looking forward to the next week, let alone 4 years.
I still don't know what Fauci did to have so much anger for him for this long lol.
Uh he acknowledged facts and science above feeelings, duh.
Trump’s political game works by creating enemies. A virus is too abstract of an enemy, so instead he creates enemies of those adjacent. Fauci, China, WHO, governors of Democratic Party states etc.
The current right wing wave we are experiencing in the world is decidedly and aggressively anti-intellectual and anti-establishment. Fauci represents both of these.
I still don’t know what Fauci did to have so much anger for him for this long lol.
Conservatives hate science and scientists. Think about how much anger conservatives had towards Galileo and Darwin.
Here's the thing. All things considered, I believe it was the right thing to do and probably the best option available given the circumstances, but a part of me still thinks that this just might end up making things worse.
I'm not even convinced that these things will hold. We have already learned that just because it says so in the Constitution doesn't mean this Supreme Court will abide by it, as they've already hand-waived away several Constitutional protections already and have essentially turned the Constitution into a very old piece of paper with guidelines that can be ignored when inconvenient.
Given this President and this Supreme Court, I could easily see the Supreme Court either spinning all new powers of "judicial review" when it comes to pardons all for itself out of thin air, or just saying that pre-emptive pardons aren't a thing and are therefore invalid. And when the precedent of Nixon's pardon is brought up, they could just say that it would have been struck down too had it been challenged. Or at least, they would have struck it down. Easy to say because Nixon's dead and it's moot one way or the other, so it's easy to twist it to their advantage.
And since accepting a pardon comes with the implication of guilt, the right wing conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day showing how this "proves" that Fauci, Milley, etc. are all guilty and should be prosecuted anyway. ("Even though the Biden pardons were all ruled invalid, the fact that these defendants had accepted them comes with the implication of guilt. That implication is not Constitutionally protected and therefore can be used against them in future prosecutions." -- This Supreme Court, probably, in the near future.) This will also lead to a groundswell of support from the rubes who will continue the march to dictatorship with thunderous applause as they start demanding that these people be prosecuted anyway, using their acceptance of the pardons in the first place as "proof" that they were right all along, these people were committing crimes, and they knew it.
Of course, if and when Trump writes his own pardon, the courts will gladly carve out an exception that applies only to Trump. His cronies may go to jail, but we all know what Trump thinks of his cronies once they stop being of use to him.
Unfortunately, this move will give anti-vax conspiracy theorists massive amounts of fuel.
They have unlimited fuel because they are free to just make shit up.
Pretty scary that he thought this was necessary.
I hope on his way out, Biden takes an old man taco shit in the private Oval Office washroom and doesn’t flush.
I'm sure idiots taking revenge on Fauci for, uh, following the science is going to really lower the costs of housing and groceries!
Asking in genuine honestly and curiosity, accepting a pardon means agreeing that you were guilty of the crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States
As far as I know, they didn't commit a crime. Is this accepting admission of guilt?
I’m so burned out and weird that my first thought was “I hope this means that they can’t become subjects of an endless media circus while evil things are being done behind the back of the press.”
Perhaps the signal to noise ratio will be slightly improved.
Had to give Trump credit for baiting Biden into doing this. He just had to issue some empty threats, and in return, Biden gave him and his supporters endless ammunition...
Like, in today's America courts' decision hardly change people's mind anymore (see: Trump), what's the worst thing Trump can do? Put them in jail? If he did that to Fauci, we will see Fauci as a hero. Had Biden not pardon them, they might be prosecuted by the court, but now, they will definitely be prosecuted by the mob.
Pardon won't protect them from legal harassment
That was the entire point of the pardon. To spare them the cost of wasting their money on lawyers. None of them were in danger of going to jail because none of them did anything illegal.
It doesn't matter, they will crucify Fauci if they want to, law and order aren't a part of the US
Not sure what good that will do. Trump patently doesn’t give an F about law, only about how he thinks he’s being perceived. So if he can find a way to prosecute anyone, even of it’s just in the court of public opinion, in such a way that he thinks it makes him stronger and wrecks their lives he will do it.
Wtf, a pardon allows you to commit crimes for the rest of your life?!?
Nope
So then how would this help someone who hasn't been charged with any crimes?
That's just admitting he committed crimes lol
None of those people committed any crimes. None of them could have been convicted of any crimes and probably couldn't have been charged with any crimes that wouldn't have resulted in the lawyers getting disbarred for misconduct. But they likely all would have had to waste their money on their own lawyers. Biden spared them from the nonsense.