United States Congress / Wikimedia Commons
CV NEWS FEED // House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, told reporters Wednesday that the Republican-controlled chamber will investigate a series of controversial pre-emptive pardons former President Joe Biden made just hours before President Donald Trump took office.
“There’s a lot of attention that’s going to be paid to this and I think that is appropriate and we will be looking at it as well,” Johnson stated.
He called Biden’s pardons “shocking” and “breathtaking.” He specifically singled out the former president’s decision to pardon his three siblings and two of their spouses.
In addition to his five family members, Biden pardoned his former Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, the seven members of the now-disbanded House Jan. 6th Committee.
>> BIDEN PREEMPTIVELY PARDONS, FAUCI, FAMILY, OTHERS <<
None of those pardon recipients are currently charged with any crime, and Biden reportedly pardoned them to prevent their prosecution under the new Trump administration.
“I don’t think that anything like that has ever been anticipated,” the speaker added in his comments to reporters. He urged the media to “look at the tape four years ago when” Democrats, including Biden himself, were “apoplectic” that “President Trump might do something similar.”
“Roll the tape,” Johnson stressed. “They all said that would be crazy and unconscionable, and now they’re cheering it along. To us, it’s disgusting.”
The speaker added that the pardon of Biden’s relatives “probably proves … the suspicion – you know, they call it ‘the Biden crime family.’ If they weren’t the crime family why would they need pardons, right?”
Also while speaking to reporters Wednesday, Johnson expressed support for Trump’s pardons of about 1,500 American citizens charged with various offenses related to their alleged participation in the Jan. 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol Building four years ago.
>> ANALYSIS: BIDEN’S PARDONS VS. TRUMP’s PARDONS ON JAN. 6 <<
Johnson, a conservative Christian, emphasized that in his ethos and worldview, he believes “in redemption … in second chances.” He implied that the recipients of Trump’s pardons already paid “a heavy penalty, having been incarcerated and all of that.”
“There was a weaponization of the Justice Department,” the speaker stated. “There was weaponization of the events following the prosecutions that happened after Jan. 6th. It was a terrible time and a terrible chapter in America’s history.”
Johnson said that what was “made clear all along” by Trump’s pardons is that “peaceful protests and people who engage in that should never be punished.”
