US President Joe Biden pardoned his siblings and their spouses on his way out of the White House, saying on Monday that his family had 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,” he said as his presidential term was ending.
The family pardons were the surprise finale in a series of unprecedented presidential actions by the Democrat, who has been known as an intuitionalist during his half-century in politics. Biden also pardoned former US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, retired General Mark Milley, members of the House of Representatives committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and allies who have been targeted by Republican President Donald Trump. He was sworn in Monday.
Photo: AFP
It was a remarkable use of Biden’s presidential power: None of the above has been charged with any crime, and the move was designed to guard against possible retribution by Trump.
Trump, during his campaign, repeatedly suggested he would seek to use the justice department to exact retribution against his perceived political foes.
His pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, told lawmakers during her confirmation hearing last week that the department would not prosecute anyone for political purposes.
However, she refused to rule out potential investigations into Trump adversaries, including the special counsel who brought two federal criminal cases against Trump that have since been abandoned.
Last month, Biden pardoned his son Hunter for tax and gun crimes, despite his previous pledges not to do so.
Biden issued blanket pardons for his brother James and his wife, Sara; his sister, Valerie, and her husband, John Owens; and his brother Francis.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor shoud acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” he said in a statement.
The pardons came just before noon. Biden was already at the Capitol to see Trump inaugurated.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS