CNN panel calls Biden’s last-minute pardon ‘a stain on his legacy’

CNN reporters and anchors said Monday that President Biden’s decision pardon his family members in the final minutes of his reign, tarnished his reputation and became “a stain on his legacy.”

“Well, it turns out Anderson, another promise broken. This is how he eventually decided to approach the justice system. This decision will raise so many troubling questions about the legal precedent that now And it would really be one of President Biden’s last acts as a sitting president,” CNN’s MJ Lee said. Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in December 2020 that the US would not see preemptive pardons under his administration and that his approach to the justice system would be completely different from that of President Trump.

The Biden pardon applies to James Biden, Sarah Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens and Frances Biden, the White House announced during Trump’s inauguration ceremony. The now-former president has claimed that his family could be the target of “politically motivated investigations” after he leaves office.

Lee previously said in a statement that this was another way the former president tarnished his own legacy.

PRESIDENT TRUMP CALLS LAST-MINUTE PARDON OF BIDEN ‘UNFORTUNATE’ AT SIGNING CEREMONY

CNN commentator and “The View” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin argued during the debate that pardoning family members was “much dirtier” than his Liz Chaney’s last-minute pardon gen. Mark Milley and Anthony Fauci.

“It’s just obscene,” CNN anchor John King said. “If you’re going to do it, have the courage to do it in the light of day and explain it to the American people. It is a stain on his legacy to do it this way. We could argue, is not so necessary, Donald Trump has promised retribution, if you are the president of the United States, who said that the curse of Donald Trump is that he does not respect democracy and does not respect the norms, dare to look? face the American people and explain what you are doing.’

Former Obama aide David Axelrod said the timing of the pardon looks suspicious.

“The thing is, Trump has been saying this for a long time. It doesn’t explain why in the last 10 minutes of your presidency you missed the release, it just made the whole thing look out of place,” Axelrod said.

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In December 2020, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Biden if he was concerned by rumors that Trump, whom he had just defeated, would issue a wave of preemptive pardons for some of his closest confidantes.

“Well, my concern is what kind of precedent it sets in how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice,” he said at the time.

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“You won’t see this kind of approach to pardons in our administration,” Biden added. “Nor will you see a policy-making approach by tweets in our administration. You know, it’s going to be a whole different way that we approach the justice system.”

Fox News’ Nicholas Lanum and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.