Pre­emp­tive par­don: How Biden’s pos­si­ble plans have his­tor­i­cal prece­dent

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Preemptive pardon: How Biden’s possible plans have historical precedent

His­to­ry has shown that there is some prece­dent for these types of par­dons.

The most famous case is like­ly when Pres­i­dent Ger­ald Ford par­doned his pre­de­ces­sor, Richard Nixon, after the lat­ter resigned in the wake of the Water­gate scan­dal in 1974. Ford par­doned Nixon “for all offens­es against the Unit­ed States which he … has com­mit­ted or may have com­mit­ted or tak­en part in dur­ing the peri­od from Jan­u­ary 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.”

Pres­i­dent Richard Nixon waves good­bye from the steps of his heli­copter on Aug. 9, 1974, out­side the White House after he gave a farewell address to mem­bers of the White House staff. He flew to near­by Andrews Air Force Base, where he board­ed Air Force One for a flight to Cal­i­for­nia. (AP Photo/Chick Har­ri­ty)

Oth­er pres­i­dents have uti­lized pre­emp­tive par­dons too. Pres­i­dent George Wash­ing­ton issued the first pres­i­den­tial par­don in 1795 to rebels involved in the Whiskey Rebel­lion in west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia, all of whom had been accused of trea­son.

Pres­i­dent Andrew John­son grant­ed a “full par­don and amnesty” to all for­mer Con­fed­er­ates on Christ­mas Day in 1868. The par­don extend­ed to all of those “who direct­ly or indi­rect­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the late insur­rec­tion or rebel­lion.” It was intend­ed to unite the frac­tured coun­try under the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment after the Civ­il War.

In 1977, Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter par­doned all men who dodged the draft dur­ing the Viet­nam War. Pres­i­dent George H.W. Bush par­doned for­mer Defense Sec­re­tary Casper Wein­berg­er, who was indict­ed on charges of lying to Con­gress about sell­ing arms to Iran in 1992.

Trump him­self also issued pre­emp­tive par­dons. He par­doned for­mer White House chief strate­gist Steve Ban­non in the last hours of his first term. Ban­non was await­ing tri­al on fed­er­al charges relat­ed to defraud­ing donors in a fundrais­ing cam­paign focused on ful­fill­ing Trump’s promise to build a wall on the south­ern bor­der.

Trump also par­doned for­mer Mari­co­pa Coun­ty Sher­iff Joe Arpaio after he was con­vict­ed of crim­i­nal con­tempt for defy­ing a judge’s order that his force stop detain­ing immi­grants because they lacked legal sta­tus. That par­don, which came before Arpaio’s sen­tenc­ing, includ­ed “any oth­er offens­es that might be charged.”

Those who are alleged­ly being con­sid­ered to be par­doned by Biden are Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D‑CA) and for­mer Rep. Liz Cheney, both of whom were of the House Jan. 6 com­mit­tee, and the for­mer head of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Aller­gy and Infec­tious Dis­eases, Dr. Antho­ny Fau­ci, who Trump and many Repub­li­cans have a strong dis­taste for after the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Accord­ing to an NPR inves­ti­ga­tion into Trump’s ral­ly speech­es, inter­views, and social media posts, the pres­i­dent-elect has “issued more than 100 threats to inves­ti­gate, pros­e­cute, imprison or oth­er­wise pun­ish his per­ceived oppo­nents,” since 2022.

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Biden aides view these threats, along with Trump FBI Direc­tor nom­i­nee Kash Patel’s vision of ret­ri­bu­tion in the Jus­tice Depart­ment, as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for con­sid­er­ing the pre­emp­tive par­dons.

Biden’s par­don of his son, Hunter Biden, was alleged­ly moti­vat­ed, in part,by his fear of what Trump’s Jus­tice Depart­ment might do to his son based on what the pres­i­dent-elect has said. Dur­ing Trump’s cam­paign, he vowed to “appoint a real spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor to go after the most cor­rupt pres­i­dent in the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime fam­i­ly.”