On Trump’s Inauguration Day, Kentucky Republicans rip Biden’s final pardons
Kentucky Republicans slammed the last-minute pardons issued Monday by Joe Biden in the final hours of his presidency before turning the White House over to President Donald Trump.
Biden pardoned five members of his family in his final hour as president, an executive action that Rep. James Comer slammed as an acknowledgment of their guilt in leveraging the Biden presidency for personal financial gain.
“President Biden’s preemptive pardons for the Biden Crime Family serve as a confession of their corruption as they sold out the American people to enrich themselves,” Comer said in a statement.
The former president preemptively pardoned his brothers, James and Francis Biden; his sister, Valerie Biden Owens; and their spouses. Biden said he took the action to protect his family from “unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me.” None had been charged with any crimes.
In that same wave of pardons, Biden also pardoned Jerry Lundergan, one of the most influential Kentucky Democrats of the modern era.
Sen. Rand Paul took issue with Biden’s pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led both Trump and Biden’s responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
“If there was ever any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the COVID pandemic, Biden’s pardon of Fauci forever seals the deal,” Paul posted.
As chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Paul said he would continue to probe the government’s response to the pandemic. He described Fauci as “the first government scientist to be preemptively pardoned for a crime.”
“Fauci’s pardon will only serve as an accelerant to pierce the veil of deception,” Paul said.
While Fauci said he committed no crime, he appreciated the pardon in order to erase the threat of a criminal investigation or prosecution by the Trump Justice Department.
The flurry of pardons came just as Trump was about to take the oath of office during a noon ceremony that was moved indoors due to bone-chilling temperatures in Washington.
Both of Kentucky’s senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, were spotted at Trump’s swearing in, as was Rep. Thomas Massie, who snapped photos and described Trump’s return as the “best comeback story ever.”
But the Biden pardons consumed considerable attention of Republicans, even as they celebrated the Trump presidency.
Comer again highlighted a report he compiled last year that found Biden’s family to have received $27 million from foreign entities during the past decade.
Comer framed the business dealings as an abuse of the president’s office to enrich his family, even though there’s been no direct evidence linking the president to those financial gains or a finding of criminal conduct.
While Comer has long said Biden should have been impeached, he was never able to convince his Republican colleagues to hold a vote in the House.
Comer cited Biden’s preemptive pardon power to accuse him of creating a “slush fund for his family,” and again derided him as “the most corrupt president in U.S. history.”
But some Democrats said the threat of vengeance animating Trump’s Justice Department and Comer’s own persistence in pursuing Biden made the pardons defensible.
“They’ve endured six years of baseless accusations without any proof, and just last week, Comer vowed to continue the nonsense,” said Chris Jackson, a Democratic county commissioner in Tennessee. “I respect a man who prioritizes his family.”
