Biden pardons former Rep. Cheney, Gen. Milley, Anthony Fauci and more
President Joe Biden granted blanket preemptive pardons for potential targets of President-elect Donald Trump to protect them from criminal charges.
WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump declared that the series of preemptive pardons issued by Joe Biden during the final moments of his presidency are “void, vacant, and of no further force or effect.”
Biden granted these last-minute pardons to various individuals he believed could be at risk of political retaliation from Trump. The beneficiaries included Anthony Fauci, ex-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; along with lawmakers and staffers from the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
In comments made to reporters late Sunday and subsequently on social media, Trump asserted that these pardons are invalid because Biden employed an autopen instead of signing them himself.
What’s an autopen?
“In other words, Joe Biden did not personally sign them but, more importantly, he was unaware of them!” the president claimed in a Truth Social post shortly after midnight.
Trump echoed points made by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which suggested that his predecessor used an autopen — a device that automatically affixes signatures to documents — when authorizing the pardons. Heritage claimed to have observed identical signatures on several documents signed by Biden.
The Justice Department has previously stated that a president “need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and chooses to sign for it to become law.”
“Instead,” the DOJ noted in 2005, “the President may execute the signing of a bill in accordance with Article I, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to place the President’s signature on such a document, such as by autopen.”
Biden’s decision to utilize pardons to protect individuals who had not been formally charged with a crime sparked significant controversy, drawing criticism from both his political opponents and some members of the Democratic Party.
When asked if these pardons would stand, Trump remarked during a press gaggle on Air Force One, “It’s not my choice; that will depend on the courts. But I would say that they’re null and void.”
