WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 24: U.S. President Joe Biden concludes his address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House on July 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. The president addressed reasons for abruptly ending his run for a second term after initially rejecting calls from some top Democrats to do so, and outlined what he hopes to accomplish in his remaining months in office. (Photo by Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images)
On Monday morning, outgoing President Joe Biden issued pardons for five members of his family in his final minutes in office.
The family members – brother James Biden and his wife, sister Valerie Biden Owens and her husband, and brother Francis Biden – were pardoned for unspecified crimes to protect against the Trump administration’s potential “revenge” campaign.
Biden said in a statement that he did not issue the pardons because they had committed any wrongdoing, but because he feared political attacks from incoming President Donald Trump.
“That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden,” Biden said. “My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me—the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”
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“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Biden continued. “But baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.”
James Biden has recently been under fire from Republicans for allegedly lying to Congress as part of its impeachment inquiry into the outgoing president and his family.
On Friday, House Oversight Committee chair James Comer wrote to Pam Bondi, incoming Attorney General, asking for her to hold James Biden accountable for “having misled Congress regarding Joe Biden’s participation in his family’s influence peddling and deserving of prosecution under federal law.”
The pardon warrant excuses the members of the Biden family of “ANY NONVIOLENT OFFENSES against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through the date of this pardon,” on Jan. 19.
Democrats were among the most critical of Biden’s pardons. “We need to make a critique of some of the more unjust pardons, like the January 6 pardons,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, (D-Virginia). “And I think it’s harder to make that critique, to stand on the high ground and make a critique of the Trump pardons on January 6 when President Biden is pardoning family members.”
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