Summary
In his final hours as president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the Jan. 6 Committee, aiming to shield them from potential retaliation by the incoming Trump administration.
Trump has hinted at targeting those who opposed him or investigated his actions.
Biden stressed that the pardons do not imply wrongdoing but protect reputations and finances from politically motivated investigations.
This unprecedented move reflects concerns about threats to democracy under Trump's return to power.
63 Comments
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world · 143 pts · 1y
The fact that this is necessary is just mind blowing.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 49 pts · 1y
The fact that they recognize this is necessary, yet still just willingly handed over power...
ptz@dubvee.org · 48 pts · 1y
That's how democracy works. You accept the results even if you don't like them. Otherwise, they'd be no better than the Jan 6 trash from this time 4 years ago.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 40 pts · 1y
I agree. Unless those results are fascism.
We have learned why it's important to have an exception for fascism.
Looks like South Korea understands that better than we do.
skvlp@lemm.ee · 41 pts · 1y
South Korea acted swiftly. The US has been sitting on its ass for four whole years. They should have acted before the fascist was re-elected.
casmael@lemm.ee · -6 pts · 1y
The fascist wasn’t re-elected though, was he
skvlp@lemm.ee · 6 pts · 1y
He was not re- elected for consecutive terms.
casmael@lemm.ee · -7 pts · 1y
It was clearly rigged, so he was not re-elected by any definition.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 1y
ptz@dubvee.org · -23 pts · 1y
No, no we shouldn't.
This is just a case of you not liking the results (I don't like them either). Again, the people spoke, and this is what we got. It sucks, but it's on the up and up.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 33 pts · 1y
This is literal fascism. Read a history book to figure out how fascism always turns out and why it's vital for any "free" society to do literally anything it can to prevent it from taking root.
Elections aren't the be-all, end-all. People made the objectively wrong decision.
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y
They made the decision. Either to vote for the insurrectionist rapist, or to sit it out because of ONE issue happening across the world. Yet none of them own up to it, choosing instead to blame the politicians for not giving them an ideal choice.
Grimy@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 1y
Imagine if you heard this from a republican. He only raped ONE girl, he only gave ONE box of highly sensitive documents to the Saudis, he only tried to overthrow ONE election.
That issue is fucking genocide and it was being enabled by our goverment. I understood the importance of holding the line leading up to the election and supporting the dems but now that it is over? They are corrupt and decided to placate their patrons because they thought they had an easy win and could ignore voters. They ran on apathy. They caused this directly.
The democrats need to change. We can't normalize genocide, even if it's only ONE genocide. Stop blaming voters, it's the dems job to listen to them and they alienated half their base instead.
ptz@dubvee.org · 5 pts · 1y
Be that as it may, that's what the country voted for and got. There was a free and fair election, and we fucked up royally.
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1y
Funny how the other side just reverts to threats and intimidation when they don't get what they want.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 1y
Ragdoll_X@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 1y
Well according to the supreme court he could just order Seal Team Six to kill Trump as long as he called it an "official act".
But Dark Brandon never came...
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 1y
Serinus@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y
I think he should have started jailing congressmen until they agreed to make a law overturning the immunity decision.
But that can "make things worse" in the same way these pardons did. And they were extremely aware of that.
There's no winning in this scenario. The people voted against the rule of law. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize, but what are they supposed to do about it? Perform a coup against the will of the people? It's doing the same damn thing we were just trying to stop.
Glasgow@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1y
No they didn't, only the low level rubes
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 1y
I don't fucking know what he was supposed to do, I'm not a lawyer, general or constitutional scholar.
dhork@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 1y
Watch him try and do it anyway, challenging the pardons in court saying pe-emptive pardons shouldn't count, only to backtrack when he realizes it means it will make the blanket pardon he wrote for himself invalid too.
Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 1y
cynar@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y
He's likely trying to throw down as many speed bumps as possible. Individually, they won't do much. Each will act as a distraction, a slight delay. Against most people in his position, they would be useless. Trump isn't most people however. He will bite and get distracted by the chew toy. It's likely about all Biden can do to limit the damage a little.
bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 1y
Shhhh don't remind him about the last part. Have him challenge blanket pardons and then let us enjoy it being used against him.
HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world · 50 pts · 1y
What a world we live in where we have to preemptively issue presidential pardons to people who have not only not committed any crimes but have served the public's interest for their entire lives
Empricorn@feddit.nl · 9 pts · 1y
Literally made their lives 1000x harder just because they were honest, dedicated, and tried to do the right thing. Going after them is despicable.
RubberElectrons@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y
It's un-be-lievable, quite honestly.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Welcome to donvict's Merica.
bravesilvernest@lemmy.ml · 31 pts · 1y
Jfc
I'm not looking forward to the next week, let alone 4 years.
Suavevillain@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 1y
I still don't know what Fauci did to have so much anger for him for this long lol.
Empricorn@feddit.nl · 20 pts · 1y
Uh he acknowledged facts and science above feeelings, duh.
crossover@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1y
Trump’s political game works by creating enemies. A virus is too abstract of an enemy, so instead he creates enemies of those adjacent. Fauci, China, WHO, governors of Democratic Party states etc.
whoisearth@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 1y
The current right wing wave we are experiencing in the world is decidedly and aggressively anti-intellectual and anti-establishment. Fauci represents both of these.
btaf45@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y
Conservatives hate science and scientists. Think about how much anger conservatives had towards Galileo and Darwin.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 24 pts · 1y
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · -15 pts · 1y
It's my opinion that Jack Smith is a conservative who did what he did intentionally.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 15 pts · 1y
bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 1y
I think he's talking about Jack Smith in the show American Dad, Stan Smith's father. He was a jewel thief and ran out on Stan and his mother.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Did the prosecutor wait to build an airtight case for 4 years before arresting Luigi?
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 1y
Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 1y
Hubi@feddit.org · 14 pts · 1y
Unfortunately, this move will give anti-vax conspiracy theorists massive amounts of fuel.
AmidFuror@fedia.io · 27 pts · 1y
They have unlimited fuel because they are free to just make shit up.
Veedem@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 1y
Pretty scary that he thought this was necessary.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y
I hope on his way out, Biden takes an old man taco shit in the private Oval Office washroom and doesn’t flush.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y
I'm sure idiots taking revenge on Fauci for, uh, following the science is going to really lower the costs of housing and groceries!
droporain@lemmynsfw.com · 6 pts · 1y
Monument@lemmy.sdf.org · 4 pts · 1y
I’m so burned out and weird that my first thought was “I hope this means that they can’t become subjects of an endless media circus while evil things are being done behind the back of the press.”
Perhaps the signal to noise ratio will be slightly improved.
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 1y
Asking in genuine honestly and curiosity, accepting a pardon means agreeing that you were guilty of the crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States
As far as I know, they didn't commit a crime. Is this accepting admission of guilt?
nialv7@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
Had to give Trump credit for baiting Biden into doing this. He just had to issue some empty threats, and in return, Biden gave him and his supporters endless ammunition...
Like, in today's America courts' decision hardly change people's mind anymore (see: Trump), what's the worst thing Trump can do? Put them in jail? If he did that to Fauci, we will see Fauci as a hero. Had Biden not pardon them, they might be prosecuted by the court, but now, they will definitely be prosecuted by the mob.
kandoh@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 1y
Pardon won't protect them from legal harassment
btaf45@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y
That was the entire point of the pardon. To spare them the cost of wasting their money on lawyers. None of them were in danger of going to jail because none of them did anything illegal.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Not sure what good that will do. Trump patently doesn’t give an F about law, only about how he thinks he’s being perceived. So if he can find a way to prosecute anyone, even of it’s just in the court of public opinion, in such a way that he thinks it makes him stronger and wrecks their lives he will do it.
T00l_shed@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
It doesn't matter, they will crucify Fauci if they want to, law and order aren't a part of the US
jagged_circle@feddit.nl · -1 pts · 1y
Wtf, a pardon allows you to commit crimes for the rest of your life?!?
Nastybutler@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Nope
jagged_circle@feddit.nl · 0 pts · 1y
So then how would this help someone who hasn't been charged with any crimes?
nwilz@lemmy.world · -13 pts · 1y
That's just admitting he committed crimes lol
btaf45@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1y
None of those people committed any crimes. None of them could have been convicted of any crimes and probably couldn't have been charged with any crimes that wouldn't have resulted in the lawyers getting disbarred for misconduct. But they likely all would have had to waste their money on their own lawyers. Biden spared them from the nonsense.
nwilz@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 1y
Then you can't pardon them
Z4XC@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y
Citation needed
nwilz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
What are you pardoning if there's no crime?
theangryseal@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Reread dude’s comment man. He laid it all out.
Derrrrr
nwilz@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
Again that's not a pardon, that's just immunity