By Samantha Flom and Zachary Stieber
Contributing Writers
Former President Joe Biden’s final act as president was to preemptively pardon several members of his family.
The sweeping pardon covers the president’s brother, James B. Biden; sister-in-law, Sara Jones Biden; sister, Valerie Biden Owens; brother-in-law, John T. Owens; and brother, Francis W. Biden. The pardons were announced minutes before President-elect Donald Trump was sworn in.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden’s statement runs counter to a recent contention by his own Justice Department in a Jan. 6 case being heard in the federal court for the District of Columbia, in which the DOJ argued that Jan. 6 defendants would be admitting guilt if they accepted a future pardon from President Donald Trump.
“[A] pardon at some unspecified date in the future … would not unring the bell of conviction,” federal prosecutors argued in a December filing in the case before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols. “In fact, quite the opposite. The defendant would first have to accept the pardon, which necessitates a confession of guilt.”
The pardons mark the second time in recent weeks that Biden has moved to protect his family members from legal jeopardy. In December, he issued a broad pardon for his son, Hunter, who was due to be sentenced for federal tax and gun crimes.
“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.
He suggested that his family members would be subject to “baseless and politically motivated investigations” under the Trump administration.
Trump, during his inaugural address, vowed to end the “unfair weaponization of the Justice Department.”
“Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents, something I know something about,” he said, alluding to the various criminal indictments he spent much of the past several years battling in court.
Trump has consistently held that he was politically targeted for prosecution by the Justice Department.
“We will not allow that to happen,” Trump said. “It will not happen again under my leadership. We will restore fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law, and we are going to bring law and order back to our cities.”
Biden’s pardons add to a list of other last-minute reprieves he issued on the final day of his presidency. Hours earlier, he preemptively pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and those who served on the House Jan. 6 Select Committee.
Biden’s Other Last-Minute Pardons
Biden is also issuing preemptive pardons to law enforcement officers who testified to the House panel.
“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said in a statement, alleging that the individuals for whom he issued the pardons “do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”
The pardons were granted to former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, and other members of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, which disbanded in early 2023. Pardons were also given to Michael Fanone, a retired Metropolitan Police Department officer following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach and other officers who testified before the House committee.
The Jan. 6 committee failed to archive certain files and deleted others, according to Republican lawmakers who reviewed the panel’s investigation.
The pardons also cover Milley, who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 through 2023, and Fauci, who was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 until he retired in 2022.
Milley has admitted that he told a Chinese general during the first Trump administration that the United States was not going to attack China, while Fauci has been accused of lying under oath about his knowledge of virology research in China.
President Donald Trump has called for investigations into Cheney and others.
The pardons were issued just hours before Trump was sworn into office on Monday.
Milley did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Inquiries to the employers of Fauci and Cheney were not immediately returned.
Biden had said recently that he was weighing whether to issue preemptive pardons, answering a question that identified Fauci and Cheney as possible recipients. Biden said at the time that during his meeting with Trump in late 2024, he “tried to make it clear that … it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores.”
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team, said in response to the remarks that Biden was abusing his executive power to protect those who “led the unconstitutional and failed witch hunts against President Trump.”
Republicans on Monday criticized the pardons.
“In its final hours, the most CORRUPT administration in American history is covering up Democrats’ trail of criminal activity,” Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Georgia, wrote on social media platform X.