President Biden issues pardons in his final morning in office
UPDATE (8:22 AM): President-Elect Donald Trump has responded to the pardons, telling NBC News, in a text, that "it is disgraceful. Many are guilty of major crimes."
(NBC, KYMA/KECY) - President Joe Biden, in his final morning in office, has issued several high profile pardons.
The outgoing president said the move was done to pre-emptively protect people President-Elect Donald Trump has threatened.
Among those pardoned: General Mark Milley, Doctor Anthony Fauci, the members and staff who served on the house committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol, including Liz Cheney, and the Capitol and Metro Police who testified before that committee.
Biden said the pardons are not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
Milley, Fauci and Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer, issued the following statements respectively:
"My family and I are deeply grateful for the President's action today. After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights. I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve our great country in uniform for over four decades, and I will continue to keep faith and loyalty to our nation and Constitution until my dying breath. I thank my wife, Hollyanne, my children, my dear friends, and my trusted colleagues who have supported me throughout my life. God bless the United States of America, and the troops who sacrifice so much in order to protect us against all enemies."
General Mark Milley
"For more than 50 years, I have been a public servant at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) serving the American people and the global community in fighting against life-threatening diseases. Throughout my career, I have been motivated by one simple goal: to improve the health and lives of humankind.
During the course of my career, I served as: 1) a basic scientist running a major immunology and infectious diseases laboratory at NIH; 2) a physician taking personal care of desperately ill patients and doing studies as a clinical investigator; 3) Director of one of the largest NIH institutes, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), for 38 years from 1984 through 2022; 4) a global public health leader and one of the principal architects of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); and 5) advisor to seven United States Presidents of both parties from Ronald Reagan to Joseph Biden. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to have served in each of these roles and fulfilled each of them to the very best of my ability. I believe and hope that my legacy is that of a dedicated and accomplished physician/scientist and public health official who, with the help of many teams of skilled and distinguished colleagues, saved millions of lives in the United States and around the world.
Despite the accomplishments that my colleagues and I achieved over my long career of public service, I have been the subject of politically motivated threats of investigation and prosecution. There is absolutely no basis for these threats. Let me be perfectly clear: I have committed no crime and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me. The fact is, however, that the mere articulation of these baseless threats, and the potential that they will be acted upon, create immeasurable and intolerable distress for me and my family.
For these reasons, I acknowledge and appreciate the action that President Biden has taken today on my behalf."
Dr. Anthony Fauci
"I am eternally grateful to President Joe Biden, not just for this preemptive pardon, but for his leadership and service to this nation, especially over the last four years. I wish this pardon weren't necessary, but unfortunately, the political climate we are in now has made the need for one somewhat of a reality. I, like all of the other public servants, was just doing my job and upholding my oath, and I will always honor that."
Harry Dunn, former Capitol police officer
