The nine former members of the January 6 Select Committee appeared to accept preemptive pardons issued by former President Biden during the last hours of his administration Monday despite several members previously urging the former president not to make them immune from prosecution related to their work on the select committee.
Biden granted members of the since-disbanded committee, including former Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, and their staff broad immunity for their work investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2020, claiming the nine former committee members face “ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties.” The members, on behalf of Cheney and former select committee chair, Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, released a statement obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation Monday appearing to accept blanket pardons while maintaining that accepting pardons is not an admission of guilt. (RELATED: Biden Pardons Five Family Members Just Moments Before Trump’s Swearing-In)
“On behalf of the Members of the Select Committee on the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, we express our gratitude to President Biden for recognizing that we and our families have been continuously targeted not only with harassment, lies and threats of criminal violence, but also with specific threats of criminal prosecution and imprisonment by members of the incoming administration, simply for doing our jobs and upholding our oaths of office,” the nine former members of the January 6 Select Committee wrote.”We have been pardoned today not for breaking the law but for upholding it.”
Several lawmakers who served on the select committee, including Kinzinger and California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, previously urged Biden to refrain from granting preemptive pardons, citing concerns that accepting a pardon would be perceived as an admission of guilt and would set a bad precedent.
“The second you take a pardon it looks like you’re guilty of something,” Kinzinger, a CNN political contributor, said on the network on Jan. 6. “I’m guilty of nothing, nothing besides bringing the truth to the American people and in the process, embarrassing Donald Trump.”
“Those of us on the committee are very proud of the work we did. We were doing vital, quintessential oversight of a violent attack on the capitol,” Schiff told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in December. “The precedent of giving blanket pardons — preemptive blanket pardons — on the way out of an administration is a precedent we don’t want to set.”
Only one former member, Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, who led the select committee, said that he would accept a preemptive pardon prior to Biden granting members of the committee broad immunity from potential prosecution.
Republicans sharply criticized Biden’s unprecedented use of the presidential pardon power during the last hours of his administration. Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy called for those who received broad immunity from potential prosecution, including the former members of the January 6 select committee, to be hauled before Congress.
“Implication is that they needed the pardons … So, let’s call them all before Congress and demand the truth,” Roy wrote on X on Monday. “If they refuse or lie – let’s test the constitutional ‘reach’ of these pardons with regard to their future actions.”
“It is disgraceful,” President Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker Monday following Biden’s announcement. “Many are guilty of MAJOR Crimes!”
The select committee members also defended Biden’s issuance of pardons, citing “extraordinary circumstances” of allegedly facing prosecution by the incoming Trump administration despite maintaining their innocence.
“These are indeed ‘extraordinary circumstances’ when public servants are pardoned to prevent false prosecution by the government for having worked faithfully as Members of Congress to expose the facts of a months-long criminal effort to override the will of the voters after the 2020 elections, including by inciting a violent insurrection to thwart the peaceful transfer of power,” the members, on behalf of Cheney and Thompson, wrote. “Such a prosecution would be ordered and conducted by persons who led this unprecedented attack on our constitutional system.”
“We are not deterred, we have never been deterred, and we will never be deterred by threats of criminal violence or criminal prosecution, and we are encouraged greatly for the future of the rule of law by the existence of the Constitution’s sweeping Speech and Debate Clause as well as this general pardon by President Biden of our Committee and its excellent staff,” the committee members added.
Biden also issued blanket preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and five members of his family, including his brother James Biden, during the final hours of his administration.
