President Biden moved to guard some of President-elect Trump’s most high-profile adversaries against a promised campaign of “retribution” by issuing pre-emptive pardons to prevent politically driven prosecutions.
Among those receiving pardons were Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime government scientist; and all members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the New York Times reports. Biden said, “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.” Biden gave pardons on Monday to the entire staff of the Jan. 6 investigating committee as well as to the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers who testified during the inquiry. Separately, Biden posthumously pardoned Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who influenced Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders and was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s. Also pardoned were a top Virginia lawmaker and advocates for immigrant rights, criminal justice reform and gun violence prevention, the Associated Press reports.
Congressional leaders pushed for Biden to pardon Garvey, with arguing that Garvey’s conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular leader who spoke of racial pride. After Garvey was convicted, he was deported to his home country of Jamaica. He died in 1940. Biden has set a presidential record for most pardons and commutations issued. He is commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. He pardoned his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes. Biden also is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment. Among others pardoned was Don Scott, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in a chamber narrowly controlled by Democrats. He was convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and served eight years in prison. Others pardoned included immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir, who was convicted of a nonviolent offense in 2001, sentenced to two years in prison and was facing deportation to Trinidad and Tobago; prison reform activist Kemba Smith Pradia, convicted of a drug offense in 1994 and sentenced to 24 years behind bars; and Darryl Chambers of Wilmington, Del. a gun violence prevention advocate who was convicted of a drug offense and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Biden commuted sentences of Michelle West, who was serving life in prison for her role in a 1990s drug conspiracy case; West's daughter Miquel has written about the struggle of growing up with a mother behind bars, and Robin Peoples, who was convicted of robbing Indiana bank in the late 1990s and sentenced to 111 years in prison. Peoples would have faced significantly lower sentences under current laws.
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