Biden’s Historic (and Potentially Stupid) Plan to Rein in Trump
President Joe Biden has spent the majority of his White House tenure practically ignoring pardon requests—but now he’s working to pardon certain individuals before they’ve even been charged with wrongdoing.In the last four years, Biden’s office has received 10,500 pardon requests, but out of those, he has issued just 25, according to Axios. Then, on December 1, the 82-year-old pardoned his son Hunter Biden, sparking immense backlash from members on the left and the right for going back on his promise to obey the jury’s decision in his son’s case.The Biden administration is working around the clock to finalize more pardons before he exits the Oval Office on January 20, but some of the names in discussion don’t actually warrant a pardon—yet.Biden is reportedly considering issuing preemptive pardons for Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson and former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, after Donald Trump told MSNBC’s Meet the Press that the pair should be “jailed,” reported TheGrio Wednesday.“We are not done yet,” one high-ranking Justice Department official (who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the pardons) told the publication.But Biden’s plan to save his allies will only add fuel to the fire of his critics, who believe that he is advancing a devastating legacy that involves backtracking on his campaign promises and undermining the rule of law. The move could potentially give more fodder to Trump supporters who falsely believe people such as Cheney or Anthony Fauci, Trump’s chief medical adviser during the Covid-19 pandemic, have committed crimes.The preemptive pardons would also set an egregiously dangerous precedent for future administrations, creating an executive privilege that could very easily be exploited by a Trump administration already surrounded by criminally charged allies.In the week and a half since Biden saved his son from an imminent criminal sentence, interest groups have vied to focus the president’s attention on their own wannabe pardon recipients. Progressives are fighting to pardon “those that are elderly, those that are ill, those that are non-violent offenders, those who have been incarcerated because of cannabis convictions,” Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley told Axios. Republicans and libertarians, meanwhile, have pushed Biden to pardon government whistleblowers, including Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
President Joe Biden has spent the majority of his White House tenure practically ignoring pardon requests—but now he’s working to pardon certain individuals before they’ve even been charged with wrongdoing.
In the last four years, Biden’s office has received 10,500 pardon requests, but out of those, he has issued just 25, according to Axios. Then, on December 1, the 82-year-old pardoned his son Hunter Biden, sparking immense backlash from members on the left and the right for going back on his promise to obey the jury’s decision in his son’s case.
The Biden administration is working around the clock to finalize more pardons before he exits the Oval Office on January 20, but some of the names in discussion don’t actually warrant a pardon—yet.
Biden is reportedly considering issuing preemptive pardons for Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson and former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, after Donald Trump told MSNBC’s Meet the Press that the pair should be “jailed,” reported TheGrio Wednesday.
“We are not done yet,” one high-ranking Justice Department official (who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the pardons) told the publication.
But Biden’s plan to save his allies will only add fuel to the fire of his critics, who believe that he is advancing a devastating legacy that involves backtracking on his campaign promises and undermining the rule of law. The move could potentially give more fodder to Trump supporters who falsely believe people such as Cheney or Anthony Fauci, Trump’s chief medical adviser during the Covid-19 pandemic, have committed crimes.
The preemptive pardons would also set an egregiously dangerous precedent for future administrations, creating an executive privilege that could very easily be exploited by a Trump administration already surrounded by criminally charged allies.
In the week and a half since Biden saved his son from an imminent criminal sentence, interest groups have vied to focus the president’s attention on their own wannabe pardon recipients. Progressives are fighting to pardon “those that are elderly, those that are ill, those that are non-violent offenders, those who have been incarcerated because of cannabis convictions,” Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley told Axios. Republicans and libertarians, meanwhile, have pushed Biden to pardon government whistleblowers, including Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
