Reactions to Biden’s Last Minute Pardons of His Family

This morning Joe Biden issued blanket pardons to Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley and members of the House J6 Committee. However, that was not the end of it. Just as the inauguration ceremony was getting started, we learned that he had also issued a final round of preemptive pardons for members of his own family.

BREAKING: Biden has pardoned his family https://t.co/z5aF5hokY5 pic.twitter.com/ExnaTzCJtl

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 20, 2025

Biden issued a statement explaining his decision.

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

Mr. Biden’s action pardoned James B. Biden, his brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’s wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Mr. Biden’s sister; John T. Owens, Ms. Owens’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Mr. Biden’s brother.

The White House announced the pardons with less than 20 minutes left in Mr. Biden’s presidency, after he had already walked into the Capitol Rotunda to witness the swearing-in of Mr. Trump before leaving the Capitol for the last time as president.

The media is, of course, treating this very differently than when Trump pardoned people connected to his administration.

When it’s Trump // when it’s Biden pic.twitter.com/4eeid2WdKW

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 20, 2025

There were reactions from people right, left and center suggesting these last minute pardons undermine Biden’s claims about the importance of norms and his trust in the system.

15 minutes before his term expires, Biden pardons his family members… https://t.co/kHNpxANvVj

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) January 20, 2025

Just minutes before leaving office, President Biden completed his race to the bottom of government ethics. He issued pardons for additional family members, including The pardon applies to James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens, and Francis Biden…

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 20, 2025

The Biden crime family got a pardon too. This is what abuse of power and fascism looks like. If you’re a democrat today you need to put on clown make up if you’re going to say anything in defense of this. This is your moment to wake up. You are what you claim we are. If you can’t… https://t.co/eU2BjOvgd2

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) January 20, 2025

Whatever happened to Joe Biden restoring and protecting norms?

Unbelievable. Democrats all look like fools, for defending him over the years. Even Joe “standards and norms” Biden knows this stinks, thus the timing. https://t.co/dlIvSmgNQN

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) January 20, 2025

Biden is leaving office dropping one lawless, norm-defying, justly impeachable un-democratic transgression after another. That’d be bad enough. But these are all precedents for the successor he thinks is a threat to democracy. It’s reckless, spiteful, and incandescently stupid.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) January 20, 2025

Everything Democrats and corporate media falsely claimed Trump would do with the pardon power to destroy democracy and the rule of law– pardon all his family members and all his political allies — were things Trump didn’t do.

They were, however, all things that Biden did: https://t.co/uQeMXGsfDA

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 20, 2025

Absolutely insane to hear Amy Klobuchar talk about the rule of law at the exact moment it’s announced that Joe Biden just pardoned the rest of his family.

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) January 20, 2025

It really was the Biden Crime Family.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) January 20, 2025

If you think it was totally fine for Joe Biden to preemptively pardon his family members, can you explain why Biden felt the need to do it at the last minute instead of weeks ago when he could have explained his decision to the American people?

— Anthony LaMesa (@ajlamesa) January 20, 2025

The White House has been hinting for weeks that some last minute pardons were happening, but the decision to wait until the inauguration was underway to annouce this is impossible to explain apart from an obvious desire to hide this until Biden was off the public stage.