Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called for former President Biden to grant all former members of the now-defunct House a preemptive pardon on Monday. In the last days of his presidency, the Jan. 6 committee was deemed “unnecessary” and “unwise.”
Schiff said in a statement, “I still think it was unnecessary and foolish to grant pardons to a committee that did such significant work to uphold the law because of the precedent it establishes.” But given the repeated and unfounded threats made by Donald Trump and some of his current law enforcement nominees, I can definitely see why President Biden felt compelled to take this action.
In a Sunday clemency action, Biden offered preemptive pardons to all nine members of the committee that looked into the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, including Schiff. Biden also granted pardons to the panel’s staff and the police officers who provided testimony.
These “full and unconditional” pardons are not time-limited and apply to any offenses connected to the committee’s “activities or subject matter.”
Biden has pushed the boundaries of the presidential pardon power by providing relief to those who have not yet been the subject of an investigation, even though it is customary for presidents to offer clemency at the end of their terms.
Biden’s choice follows President Trump’s repeated promises to target his alleged adversaries as soon as he returns to office. Trump said in December that the House Jan. 6 committee members “should go to jail.”
The committee was chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) serving as vice chair and second-in-command. Current Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and former Representatives Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Elaine Luria (D-Va.), and Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) were among the other members.
Thompson and Cheney said they were pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it” in a joint statement on Monday.
The statement, which was posted on the social media platform X, stated that “these are indeed ‘extraordinary circumstances’ when public servants are pardoned to prevent false prosecution by the government for having faithfully worked as Members of Congress to expose the facts of a months-long criminal effort to override the will of the voters after the 2020 elections, including by inciting a violent insurrection to thwart the peaceful transfer of power.”
Biden’s last-minute pardon announcements coincided with the clemency actions. Additionally, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and a number of Biden’s relatives were preemptively pardoned by the former president.
Even as his Justice Department implied in recent court filings for Jan. 6 defendants, many of whom are anticipating pardons from Trump, that accepting a pardon entails an implicit admission of guilt, Biden stated Monday morning that the pardons do not show that the individuals “engaged in any wrongdoing.”