High-profile Dems warned Biden against preemptive pardons before giving Fauci, Milley passes

High-profile Democrats and former President Biden, himself, warned about blanket, preemptive pardons before Biden ultimately granted passes to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of his family in the 11th hour of his administration.

“The precedent of giving blanket pardons, preemptive blanket pardons on the way out of an administration, I think, is a precedent we don’t want to set,” now-Sen. Adam Schiff warned on ABC’s “This Week” in December. 

Biden ended his term in the Oval Office on Monday, when President Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. But hours before the inauguration, the White House announced pardons for both Fauci and Milley and those involved in the January 6 select committee investigation – though those individuals were not identified by name. 

And just 22 minutes before leaving office, Biden also pardoned his family, including his brother James B. Biden, sister Valerie Biden Owens, brother-in-law John T. Owens, and brother Francis W. Biden. The former president had previously issued a blanket pardon to his adult son, Hunter Biden, after he was convicted in two separate federal cases last year.  

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to the president. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me – the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” Biden said in a statement pardoning his family. 

Speculation had mounted that Biden would issue blanket pardons and preemptive pardons to those viewed as Trump’s political foes, such as former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, as well as Milley and Fauci and members of the Biden family. 

Democrats stretching from former President Bill Clinton to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., warned Biden against issuing such pardons in the waning days of his administration. 

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Former President Bill Clinton speaks onstage on Dec. 4, 2024, in New York City. (Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times)

“If President Biden wanted to talk to me about that, I would talk to him about it. But I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power. I think it’s too – it’s a very personal thing, but it is – I hope he won’t do that,” Clinton said of preemptive pardons on “The View.”

Sen. Dick Durbin speaks during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin also warned against such pardons in an interview on CNN last month, remarking, “when we talk about a preemptive pardon, where does it start and where does it stop?”

Klobuchar echoed that sentiment in the same month. 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar warned against preemptive pardons. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“I am not a fan of these [preemptive pardons],” she said. “I didn’t like the pardon of the president’s son. I didn’t think that that was prudent. But I also am very concerned about this idea of preemptive pardons.”

Biden, too, had warned against preemptive pardons before he took office in 2020, at a time when speculation swirled that Trump would pardon his children and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. 

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“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 in an interview with CNN in December 2020. 

Trump ultimately did not pardon his adult children or the former mayor of New York City. 

President Biden signs proclamations creating national monuments at the White House on Jan. 14, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Following the 11th hour pardons for Milley, Fauci and staff of the Jan. 6 Select Committee and family, political leaders and lawmakers slammed the decision, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

“One of Biden’s greatest abuses of power was the forcing of mRNA shots by executive fiat (which Florida successfully blocked). Now, on his way out the door, Biden pardons the chief henchman of that and so many other abuses. The swamp protects its own,” said DeSantis, a Republican, on Monday. 

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Fauci was the national spokesman for the nation’s pandemic response, including advising then-President Trump in 2020 on how to handle COVID-19 as it swept across communities.

Dr. Anthony Fauci appears before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on June 3, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

But his favor with the president waned over time, with Trump slamming him and fellow pandemic task force adviser Dr. Deborah Birx as “two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations.”

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Fauci said Monday he appreciates his pardon, though he stressed he has “committed no crime.” 

“I really truly appreciate the action President Biden has taken today on my behalf,” Fauci told ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl.

“Let me be perfectly clear, Jon, I have committed no crime, you know that, and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me,” he continued.

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Gen. Mark Milley speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon, July 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Milley, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also has a contentious relationship with Trump and his supporters. He had called Trump a “fascist” and “the most dangerous person to this country” just ahead of the November election. 

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Trump has repeatedly slammed Milley since leaving office, including after the United States’ botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, when he called Milley a “loser who shamed us in Afghanistan and elsewhere!”

After the election, Milley appeared to walk back his characterization of Trump as a “fascist,” saying ​​America will “be OK” under Trump’s second administration.

Rep. Liz Cheney during her primary election night party in Jackson, Wyoming, Aug. 16, 2022. (Reuters/David Stubbs)

Liz Cheney, the Republican former congresswoman from Wyoming, and Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Jan. 6 House Select Committee chair, were also targets of Trump’s ire. Biden did not mention Cheney or Thompson by name in his statement, instead pardoning “staff who served on the Select Committee.”

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Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2025. (Trump-Vance Transition Team)

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“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a White House statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”