Biden pardons
Executive summary
President Joe Biden used his clemency power in the closing days of his presidency to issue a mix of individual pardons, mass proclamations and preemptive pardons that included family members, high-profile public servants such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Gen. Mark Milley, members and staff of the House Jan. 6 committee and broad groups pardoned earlier for marijuana possession and military convictions; the actions were defended as protections against politically motivated prosecutions and criticized as potential abuses of an unchecked power [1] [2] [3]. The moves substantially increased Biden’s overall clemency totals — which are historically large in aggregate when commutations are counted — and provoked intense partisan reaction and constitutional debate [4] [3] [5].
1. What Biden actually did: the list and the notable names
In his final hours and in prior proclamations, Biden issued individual and collective pardons that included his son Hunter Biden (for tax and gun matters), five of his immediate family members, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Joint Chiefs chair Mark Milley, members and staff of the January 6 Select Committee and police officers who testified to that panel, as well as posthumous pardons like Marcus Garvey and prior proclamations forgiving many federal simple-marijuana-possession convictions and certain military convictions for consensual gay sex [1] [6] [7] [3] [8].
2. Preemptive pardons — what they are and how Biden used them
Several of Biden’s clemency actions were “preemptive” pardons, meaning they were granted before any charge, conviction or even investigation for the recipient; the White House framed these as shields against anticipated prosecutions by the incoming administration, a rationale Biden explicitly stated for public servants and some family members [2] [7] [9]. Lawfare’s catalog notes the unusual nature of pardoning people who have not been charged, and the Biden announcements uniformly cautioned that acceptance of a pardon should not be read as an admission of guilt [2] [9].
3. Scale and historical context: numbers matter but so does type
Biden’s administration recorded thousands of clemency actions when commutations and mass proclamations are tabulated — for example, a White House list announced 2,490 commutations on one occasion and Justice Department pages compile pardons and commutations across 2021–2025 — and scholars note that while his total number of individual pardons is not the highest historically, the breadth and some novel uses of preemptive pardons are distinctive [4] [10] [3].
4. Political reactions and the partisan freight of last‑minute pardons
Critics from across the aisle, including then-President-elect Trump, denounced the pardons as “disgraceful” and evidence of corrupt or self-serving use of clemency — rhetoric amplified by the inclusion of family members and allies — while supporters argued the measures rectified injustices and protected civil servants from politicized prosecutions; media outlets across the spectrum covered both the legal novelty and the political fallout [9] [5] [1].
5. Legal and constitutional questions raised
Constitutional scholars and commentators have warned that broad last‑minute pardons expose the dangers of an unchecked executive clemency power, reviving long-standing debates about whether the Framers intended such sweeping, preemptive uses absent institutional checks, even as defenders point out that precedent exists for broad commutations and mass pardons in prior administrations [5] [3].
6. What reporting covers and what it does not
Available official lists and news reporting document who was pardoned, the stated rationales and the controversies those moves sparked, but reporting does not establish whether any of the preemptive recipients would in fact have faced lawful indictments under a subsequent administration nor does it prove intent to absolve wrongdoing beyond the White House statements; sources are explicit about what the pardons cover and caution readers about assumptions not supported by evidence [2] [7] [1].