The News
Outgoing US President Joe Biden issued pre-emptive presidential pardons for potential targets of incoming US President Donald Trump — who has promised a campaign of “retribution” against his adversaries — hours before the official transfer of power.
In the minutes before Trump took office, Biden issued a pardon for five members of his family: his brothers, sister, and their spouses, stating that the pardons protect them from political attacks motivated ”solely by a desire to hurt me,” Axios reported.
Former government medical adviser Anthony Fauci, who advised Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, were also among those pardoned. The pardons will likely make it difficult, if not impossible, for Trump to prosecute them, The New York Times reported.