Biden issues pre-emptive pardons for members of his family in one of his final acts as president
Just minutes before he left office, Joe Biden announced a set of sweeping pre-emptive pardons for members of his family, including his two brothers and his sister, after some on the right suggested they should face prosecution.
Just minutes before he left office, Joe Biden announced a set of sweeping pre-emptive pardons for members of his family, including his two brothers and his sister, after some on the right suggested they should face prosecution.
The announcement — a move Biden once said would not be indicative of his administration — came ahead of the inauguration ceremony for Donald Trump, who was sworn in as the 47th president Monday.
"My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics," Biden said in a statement. "Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end."
In an interview with CNN in 2020, Biden criticized the notion of an outgoing president’s pre-emptively pardoning family members. At the time, it was suggested that it was such a move Trump might take.
“It concerns me, in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice,” Biden said then. “Now, in terms of the pardons, you’re not going to see, in our administration, that kind of approach.”
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