CNN’s Elie Honig Declares That Biden and Trump’s ‘Highly Abnormal’ Pardons Herald High-Stakes Moment in U.S. History
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig declared that former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump’s issuance of “highly abnormal” pardons on Monday heralded the beginning of a new, high-stakes moment in U.S. history.
Asked by anchor Wolf Blitzer for his reaction to Biden’s preemptive pardon of political allies, January 6 witnesses and families, Honig also weighed in on Trump’s impending pardon of January 6 participants.
“Well, Wolf, John and Jamie were talking earlier about the normalcy of much of what we’re seeing today, but there also is a highly abnormal development underway. This is, I think, the most abnormal day we’ve ever seen in the history of the pardon power,” began Honig. “We started off the day with Joe Biden, in his last minutes in office, issuing blanket preemptive pardons to five of his own family members. Now, what’s to come? The pardons that Donald Trump is going to exercise soon, I think, are best understood as a raw exercise of political power.”
He continued:
There’s no legitimate law enforcement need — and I think Marc Short was just saying this — behind the pardons to January 6th rioters. And what I’m looking for is two things. One: Where does Donald Trump draw the line? Will he only pardon people who were convicted of misdemeanors? Will he get up to people who were convicted of destroying property, of violence against police officers? How are they going to draw those lines? There’s 1,400 people who’ve been charged. And number two: What does the Justice Department then do with the hundreds of still pending January 6th cases? So the stakes here are enormous. We are at a new moment in U.S. history.
Biden issued his sweeping pardons in two installments Monday morning, citing the potential for prosecutorial misconduct against the recipients as his rationale, while Trump announced in a speech in the Capitol Building that he intended to be true to his promise to the January 6 participants, whom he calls “hostages.”
Watch above via CNN.
