Joe Biden, when he took office on President Donald Trump’s departure in 2021, said he wouldn’t use pardons like Trump.
Trump did, in fact, pardon a couple of dozen people, mostly during his last few days in office.
They included Stephen Bannon, Dinesh D’Souza and Joseph Arpaio, all longtime supporters.
The rest ranged from fraud cases to conspiracy to obstruction to bank robbery to illegal voting.
December, 2020. Jake Tapper asks President-elect Biden about the rumor that Trump may issue some preemptive pardons before leaving office.
Biden: You’re not going to see me do that. pic.twitter.com/YNyS0Qk9yY
— MAZE (@mazemoore) January 20, 2025
At the time, Biden was asked in an interview whether Trump’s use of “preemptive pardons” concerned him.
“It concerns me in terms of it uh, what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks as us as a nation of laws and, uh, injustice,” he said. “Um. You’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons.”
However, his intentions fell by the wayside in the real world, much like his repeated promises to Americans that he would not pardon his son, Hunter, of the gun charges on which he was convicted, or the tax charges to which he pleaded guilty.
He did.
And he pardoned a long list of other supporters, such as Anthony Fauci, the members of the J6 investigation commission, virtually all of his family members – James Biden, Frank Biden, Valerie Biden Owns, John Owens and Sara Biden – who may have been caught up the long list of Biden family schemes, Gen. Mark Milley.
He also commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier, in jail for nearly five decades for the 1970s killings of two FBI agents.
Earlier, in multiple orders, he also had pardoned or commuted the sentences of thousands of federal inmates, including several dozen convicted killers who were awaiting the death penalty.
Biden, justifying his actions, said, “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 nothing.”
* * *
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
