In his final minutes as president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to his two brothers, James and Francis, and his sister, Valerie, to protect them from what he predicts will be politically motivated attacks led by President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans.
“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.”
Biden used his presidential power to pardon five members of his immediate family: James, his wife Sara, Valerie, her husband John Owens, and Francis. The outgoing president said the pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”
James and Sara, in particular, were pardoned, presumably because James wrote Joe a $200,000 check on March 1, 2018 — the same day he received the funds from distressed rural hospital provider Americore.
In September 2017, James and his wife also sent his older brother a $40,000 check that used funds originating from a Chinese energy firm CEFC in addition to other transactions involving Joe that caught the attention of the Republican-led House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Both checks were classified as loan repayments.
The other family members were pardoned to ensure they aren’t targeted by the incoming administration. The clemency act covers any nonviolent offenses they may have committed since January 1, 2014.
When asked about the possibility of Trump issuing preemptive pardons to his children in 2020, Biden said, “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 . . . in terms of the pardons, you’re not going to see, in our administration, that kind of approach to pardons.”
Earlier Monday, Biden issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, and the lawmakers and staff who served on the January 6 committee to prevent his successor from enacting retribution against his political opponents. He also pardoned the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the January 6 committee.
In December, Biden pardoned Hunter from his two federal cases involving tax and gun-related charges. Notably, the Democratic president reversed course on pardoning his own son after pledging he wouldn’t do so last year.
Biden set the presidential record for most individuals pardons and commutations. On Friday, he reduced the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. And last month, he converted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Trump vowed to “vigorously pursue the death penalty” following Biden’s commutations.