Former Senior Biden Aide Tells CNN She’s ‘Disappointed’ in His Last Minute Pardons: ‘Hard To Argue’ It Doesn’t Send ‘Bad Message’

CNN’s Kate Bedingfield blasted former President Joe Biden’s last minute pardons of family members as a “disappointing move” to go out on.

Bedingfield, who previously served as communications director in Biden’s White House, knocked her former boss’s pardons of family members during an appearance on CNN This Morning on Tuesday. Bedingfield said she would be “totally candid” and argued Biden’s pardons went against exactly the type of power he was criticizing President Donald Trump over. Bedingfield also served under Biden during former President Barack Obama’s administration, and she worked on his 2020 presidential campaign.

Biden preemptively pardoned his brother, James Biden; his sister-in-law, Sara Jones Biden; his sister, Valerie Biden Owens; his brother-in-law, John T. Owens; and his youngest brother, Francis Biden. These pardons followed him also pardoning his son Hunter Biden as he awaiting sentencing on gun and tax charges.

The former president said the preemptive pardons were a response to attacks and corruption accusations from Republicans and Trump on him and his family.

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Biden explained in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”

Check out the CNN exchange below:

KASIE HUNT: “How do you feel about Biden pardoning his family members, especially on the way out in a preemptive way? And how much damage do you think he did? How much damage do you think Democrats think he did?”

BEDINGFIELD: It was a disappointing move. I was disappointed, and I think he has spoken so eloquently about the need to preserve the rule of law. As he was coming into office in 2020, he talked about the idea of Trump pardoning his family and said that it would send a bad message. And I think it’s hard to argue that it didn’t yesterday. I will be totally candid. I think it was disappointing. I also think you have to recognize that we are now in a Trump 2.0 era where Trump has been very clear that he intends to use the armed long arm of the government to go after his political enemies, and I can understand why Joe Biden might look at his family and say, I’m going to do everything in my power to protect them on the way out the door. I think as a human matter, I can understand that argument. I think politically, I don’t buy the argument that somehow what Biden did yesterday gives more leeway to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is going to come in and issue a blanket pardon for people who assaulted police officers in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. It did not matter what Joe Biden did or did not do, that was going to happen. And that’s something that Donald Trump is going to own.

Watch above via CNN.