Biden pardons Fauci, Milley and members of the committee on January 6

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden pardoned in one of his last acts as president Dr. Anthony Fauciretired Gen. Mark Milley and members of House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitolin an extraordinary use of executive power to guard against potential “revenge” by the new Trump administration.

The decision Monday by Biden came after current President Donald Trump had warned an enemy list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempts to overturn his election loss in 2020 and his role in the Capitol siege four years ago. Trump has selected cabinet nominees who back up his election lies and who has vowed to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.

“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken for an admission that a person has committed any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”

The prospect of such pardons had been the subject of heated debate for months at the highest levels of the White House. It is customary for a president to grant pardons at the end of his term, but these acts of mercy are usually offered to Americans who have been convicted of crimes.

Trump said after his inauguration that Biden had pardoned people who were “very, very guilty of very bad crimes” — “political thugs,” Trump called them.

Biden, a Democrat, has used the power in the broadest and most untested way possible: to pardon those who have not even been investigated. His decision lays the groundwork for an even more expansive use of pardons by Trump, a Republican, and future presidents.

While the Supreme Court ruled last year that presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution for what could be considered official acts, the president’s aides and allies enjoy no such shield. There are concerns that future presidents could use the promise of a blanket pardon to encourage allies to take actions they would otherwise resist for fear of running afoul of the law.

“I continue to believe that the granting of pardons to a committee that undertook such important work to uphold the law was unnecessary and, because of the precedent it sets, unwise,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D -Calif., who worked on the committee. “But I certainly understand why President Biden felt he had to take this step.”

It is unclear whether those pardoned by Biden will have to apply for the pardon. Acceptance could be seen as a tacit admission of guilt or wrongdoing, validating years of attacks by Trump and his supporters, even though those pardoned have not been formally charged with any crimes. The “full and unconditional” pardons for Fauci and Milley cover the period stretching back to January 1, 2014.

“These are unusual circumstances and I can’t in good conscience do anything,” Biden said, adding that “even when individuals have done nothing wrong — and have actually done the right thing — and will ultimately be exonerated, it’s the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputation and finances.”

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 tenure, and later served as Biden’s chief medical adviser until his retirement in 2022. He helped coordinate the nation’s response to COVID-19 pandemic and raised Trump’s ire when he resisted Trump’s unproven public health notions. Fauci has since become the target of intense hatred and vitriol from people on the right who blame him for mask mandates and other policies they believe violated their rights even as hundreds of thousands of people died.

“Despite the accomplishments my colleagues and I achieved during my long career in public service, I have been the subject of politically motivated threats of investigation and prosecution,” Fauci said in a statement. “There is absolutely no basis for these threats. Let me be absolutely clear: I have committed no crime.”

Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called Trump a fascist and has detailed Trump’s behavior around the Jan. 6 uprising. He said he was grateful to Biden for a pardon.

“I do not wish to spend the remaining time the Lord gives me fighting those who may unjustly seek retribution for alleged slights,” he said in a statement. “I do not want to put my family, my friends and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense and anxiety.”

Biden has also pardoned members and staff of the January 6 committee that investigated the attack, as well as US Capitol and DC Metropolitan Police officers who testified before the House Committee on their experiences that day, overrun by an angry, violent mob. Trump supporters. It is a “full and unconditional pardon” for any offense “which they may have committed or participated in arising out of or in any way related to the activities or subject matter.”

The committee spent 18 months investigating Trump and the rebellion. It was led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and then-Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming who later pledged to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and campaigned with her against Trump. The committee’s final report found that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the legal results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

“Instead of accepting accountability,” Biden said, “those who carried out the January 6th attack have taken every opportunity to undermine and intimidate those who sat on the Select Committee in an attempt to rewrite history, erase the stain from 6 January for party recovery, and seek revenge, including by threatening criminal prosecution.”

Biden’s statement did not identify dozens of members and staffers by name. Some did not know they were to receive pardons until it happened, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Cheney and Thompson, in a statement on behalf of the committee, said they were grateful for the decision and said they were pardoned “not for breaking the law, but for upholding it.”

“These are truly ‘extraordinary circumstances’ when public servants are pardoned to prevent bogus prosecution by the government for working faithfully as members of Congress to expose the facts of a months-long criminal effort to override the will of the voters after the 2020 election , including by inciting a violent rebellion,” the statement read.

The scope of legal protections offered by the pardons may not fully protect lawmakers or their staff from other types of inquiries, particularly from Congress. Republicans on Capitol Hill will likely still have broad leverage to investigate the committee’s actions, as the House GOP did in the last session of Congress, seeking testimony and other material from those involved.

Biden, an institutionalist, has promised a smooth transition to the next administration, invites Trump to the White House and says the nation will be all right, even as he warned during his farewell speech of a growing oligarchy. He has spent years warning that Trump’s ascension to the presidency again would be a threat to democracy. His decision to break with political norms was prompted by these concerns.

Biden has set the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued. He also pardoned his son Hunter for tax and weapons offences. Moments before he leaves the office, he pardoned his siblings and their spouses in a move designed to protect against potential retaliation.

He is not the first to consider such preemptive pardons. Trump aides considered them for Trump and his supporters involved in his failed effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which culminated in the violent riot at the Capitol. But Trump’s pardons never materialized until he left office four years ago.

In 1974, President Gerald Ford granted a “full, free and absolute pardon” to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, over the Watergate scandal.

Trump has promised to grant swift clemency to many of those involved in the Capitol riot.

Previous Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanonewho lost consciousness and suffered a heart attack after a riot shocked him with a stun gunwas one of the officers who testified before the congressional panel investigating the attack on January 6, 2021. Fanone said he heard about Biden’s last-minute pardons from a reporter. He said it was about protecting him and his family from a “vengeful party”.

“I haven’t digested it,” he said. “I just can’t believe this is my country.”

___

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Mary Clare Jalonick and Michael Kunzelman contributed to this report.