Preemptive Pardons and Hypocrisy

“The idea of a kind of prospective pardon, this sort of permanent federal Get Out of Jail Free card, That seems to be what we’re talking about in the case of this, right?” said MSNBC Chris Hayes. “I wouldn’t ask for a pardon. I don’t think I deserve one because I don’t think I’ve done anything criminal. But like, where does that come from? That concept you can just kind of wave your magic pardon wand?”  he continued.

“Have you ever heard of somebody getting a preemptive pardon who was innocent of all crime, who’s just an innocent person? Have you ever heard of that, just somebody getting a blanket pardon and they’re an innocent person?” MSNBC’s Joy Reid asked Congressman Adam Schiff.  “No,” Schiff responded. “It’s the president’s own family. It’s people that have been covering up for the President, in addition to his own family.”

In another interview CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Schiff, “Would you see that. . . as essentially an admission of guilt?” “I certainly would view it that way,” Schiff told Blitzer. “I think millions of Americans would view it that way. If there was no belief in criminality, why would he think a pardon was necessary?”  As reported by Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Kristine Parks of Fox News, these statements were made in 2020 after a December 1, New York Times headline “Trump Has Discussed With Advisers Pardons for His 3 Eldest Children and Giuliani.” The rumor turned out to be false.

After winning the 2020 election, Biden was asked about Trump’s supposed preemptive pardons during a sit-down with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Well, it concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice,” Biden told Tapper, later adding “you’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons.” (emphasis added)

That’s how the media worked during the first Trump presidency. Accuse him, his family and people working with him of being criminals or Russian spies then float the rumor that the President was considering pardoning them, essentially proving that they were guilty.

By now everyone not living in a cave knows that about fifteen minutes before Biden left office Monday, he granted preemptive pardons to members of his family, members of his administration and Congress who might be prosecuted by the new Trump Justice Department.

MSNBC reported it this way, “In his final days in office, President Joe Biden decided to pardon the innocent—people who committed no known crimes—including former Rep. Liz Cheney R-Wyo, former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, Dr. Anthony Fauchi, Gen. Mark Milley and others.”

So in 2020, the reported lie that Trump might pardon his family and people close to him proves that they were guilty, but in 2025 when Biden actually does pardon his family and the people who worked for him, they are presumed innocent.

Projection:  Freud’s hypothesis was that people project to defend their egos. Projecting a threatening trait onto others may be a byproduct of the mechanism that defends the ego, rather than a part of the defense itself. Trying to suppress a thought pushes it to the mental foreground, psychologists have argued, and turns it into a chronically accessible filter through which one views the world.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant and over the next few years expect lots of it to be shining on the Biden family and the others who carried his water while he held office.