Topics: Politics, US News, Donald Trump, Joe Biden
Former president Joe Biden has made a shocking claim after Donald Trump declared he'd voided his predecessor’s last pardons.
Just before Biden left office and retired his role as the 46th president of the United States, he issued a series of pardons that were intended to shield many public figures from politically charged attacks.
Some of those who were handed absolutions were members of the team investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as controversial Covid response chief Dr Anthony Fauci.
Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also pardoned alongside members of Biden’s own family - his brothers James and Frank Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, and their spouses too.
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At the time of the pardons, Biden claimed he was motivated to pardon his relatives after being worried they needed protecting from ‘unrelenting attacks and threats’.
Biden also commuted the life sentence of indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, 80, was jailed for killing two FBI agents nearly 50 years ago, as per a statement.
This allowed him to finish his sentence under home confinement rather than behind bars.
However, Trump was not happy about Biden’s pardons, with a spokesperson for Trump, describing them as the ‘greatest attack on America's justice system in history’, as per the BBC.
So, what happened?
As soon as he took office, Trump declared all pardons issued by the former president to be ‘void, vacant, and of no further force or effect’.
Taking to his social media platform, Truth Social, the Republican wrote: “The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.
“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”
He claimed the ‘necessary Pardoning Documents’ were neither ‘explained’ nor approved by Biden.
“Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level.
“The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!”
But now a twist has been issued as Biden has come out to declare that he did indeed know about them, and he did have someone else sign them via his signature using autopen, but admitted he didn't personally approve every single name on the list of pardons.
“I made every decision,” Biden said in an interview with The New York Times on July 10.
He explained that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature because ‘we’re talking about a whole lot of people'.
Trump had claimed the person who ‘controlled the autopen’ during Biden’s term in office was ‘the real President’.
Admitting that while he did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons, Biden signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine who would qualify for reductions of sentences.
On December 12, Biden commuted around 1,500 sentences and pardoned 39 more, and just three days before he left office, he commuted the sentence of nearly 2,500 federal inmates that were convicted of crack cocaine offenses.
“I understand why Trump would think that,” the former president told the Times. “Because obviously, I guess, he doesn’t focus much. Anyway, so - yes, I made every decision.”
Because of the controversy sparked by the use of the autopen signings, the White House has also confirmed that Ed Martin, who is the head of an anti-weaponization working group, is probing whether Biden ‘was competent and whether others were taking advantage of him through use of autopen or other means.’
