President Biden has not decided whether he will issue preemptive pardons to prominent critics of President-elect Trump, including Dr. Anthony Fauci or former congresswoman Liz Cheney, he said in a new interview published Wednesday.
“Well, a little bit of it depends on who he puts in what positions,” Biden told USA Today.
USA Today’s Susan Page pressed further, asking, “So you haven’t decided yet. You’re still assessing this issue?”
“Well, no, I have not. For example, I think there are certain people like, if he were to, I don’t want to name their names,” Biden said, before asking to go off the record.
Biden’s comments come as media reports have indicated the White House is privately weighing whether to issue preemptive pardons to several Biden allies, including Fauci, Cheney, and retired General Mark Milley, who served as the joint chiefs of staff under Trump’s first administration.
Biden and his aides are reportedly concerned that President-elect Donald Trump could weaponize his power to exact revenge on his political enemies. This has led Biden and his advisers — including White House counsel Ed Siskel and chief of staff Jeff Zients — to consider the highly unusual move of offering pardons to people who are not currently being either investigated or charged with crimes — a test of the president’s executive pardoning power.
Last month, Biden announced he had decided to pardon his son, Hunter, after repeated guarantees that he would not do so.
Biden’s decision to pardon his son came despite at least ten guarantees from the president and his White House that he was not planning to pardon Hunter, who was found guilty in June on three felony charges for federal gun violations and pleaded guilty in September in a separate felony tax case.
Biden acknowledged to USA Today that his decision to pardon his son might set a bad precedent but said “two factors” convinced him to pardon his son anyway: the fact that Hunter eventually paid all of his back taxes and that the allegation involving his son lying on a federal gun-buying form about his active drug use at that time had never been tried in a criminal case before.
White House press secretary Jean-Pierre had previously explained that Biden had made the decision to pardon his son because “circumstances have changed.”
“Recently announced Trump appointees for law enforcement have said on the campaign that they were out for retribution,” she said.
Trump said back in March that Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!”
However, some of the potential recipients of Biden’s preemptive pardons have said they are not interested in receiving a pardon for crimes they didn’t commit, including January 6 Select Committee members Senator Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) and former Representative Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.)
“The second you take a pardon and it looks like you’re guilty of something — I’m guilty of nothing besides bringing the truth to the American people,” Kinzinger said Monday.