Acting on the day he leaves office, President Biden used his executive clemency power to protect people targeted by his incoming successor, Donald J. Trump, who has vowed “retribution.”

Among those receiving the pardons were Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the longtime government scientist; and all the members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming.

  • @NightwingdragonEnglish
    2•6 hours ago

    Doesn’t matter. They’ll just come up with a whole new list of charges to hit them with.

    Johnson could order “hearings” in order to prove Fauci himself concocted and released COVID-19 out of his own basement, and subpoena Fauci to testify, then hit him with obstruction charges when he refuses to participate in their kangaroo court. Or they won’t go after Cheney for her role in the j6 hearings, but they’ll suddenly have hearings about the 2020 election being stolen and what her role in that was.

    You get the idea. It doesn’t take much to make an end-run around these pardons if Trump really wants to, and even if that fails, there’s the very real possibility that SCOTUS will magically say they have the right to “judicial review” of these pardons and just invalidate them. Would be far from the first time that SCOTUS just created powers for itself out of thin air.