Let’s begin today with this; the presidential pardon power, which is a vast authority provided by a brief clause in our Constitution, is murky and ambiguous, as well as largely untested by our courts when it comes to its legal limits. Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, of the United States Constitution, simply states that the president "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” In other words, a president has the power to pardon felons for federal crimes, but not the power to pardon criminals for state crimes or to overturn congressional impeachments. Although the Constitution does not stipulate whether or not a president can issue pardons to felons before they are even charged with a felony, it is generally understood that the presidential pardon power is exclusive to past offenses and cannot be extended to future ones. 

When it comes to preemptive pardons—presidential pardons granted before formal charges are brought or a criminal conviction occurs—the Supreme Court ruled way back in 1866, in its Ex parte Garland case, that the presidential pardon power "extends to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” It is this sweeping ruling, which filled in the blanks left by our Constitution, that provided the seedbed for all presidential preemptive pardons ever since.

Presidential preemptive pardons have been both rare and controversial. They have also been mostly issued collectively rather than individually, as well as issued mainly for the good of our republic rather than the pardoned. For instance, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson’s preemptive pardoning of former Confederate soldiers was intended to help heal our nation after the Civil War. Likewise, Jimmy Carter’s preemptive pardoning of draft dodgers during the Vietnam War was also intended to bring our nation back together after being torn apart by our controversial wars in Indochina. While there have been rare presidential preemptive pardons granted to individuals, like Gerald Ford’s 1974 pardoning of Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed while in office, even these, for the most part, were intended to heal our nation and to help it get past something that seriously threatened it, such as the Watergate scandal.

Truly, the plethora of preemptive presidential pardons printed out by Joe Biden’s autopen in the final minutes of his presidency were not only unprecedented, but anything but healing or unifying to our representative republic. It’s safe to say that Biden’s autopen, which printed out preemptive pardons like perforated raffle tickets, issued more individual preemptive pardons than all of Biden’s presidential predecessors combined. Those preemptively pardoned by our preeminent presidential pardoner, or by whoever was operating his autopen, include Biden’s son Hunter, his sister Valerie, his brothers James and Frank, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and others, such as General Mark Miley. All told, Biden, on his way out the White House door, shut the door on the criminal prosecution of a whole plethora of felons within his own family and administration.

Yesterday, one of Biden's Get Out Of Jail Free Card recipients, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who had refused to voluntarily testify before a senate committee, was forced to do so under the power of a subpoena. However, instead of answering any of the committee’s questions, Fauci pleaded the Fifth Amendment 111 times, despite having previously received, at his own behest, a blanket and preemptive pardon by President Joe Biden. In spite of Fauci tuning his nose up at the senate committee, as well as at our whole citizenry, by persistently pleading the Fifth Amendment and refusing to answer any questions, he may be skating on legal thin ice, since our courts, including our Supreme Court, have consistently ruled that pardoned individuals have no constitutional right to plead the Fifth, since they face no legal jeopardy or self-incrimination for truthfully testifying about crimes they’ve been pardoned for committing.

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled, in Brown v. Walker, that a witness who has been fully pardoned for a crime can no longer claim Fifth Amendment protection, since the witness, who no longer faces legal jeopardy for his pardoned crime, cannot self-incriminate himself. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled, in Burdick v. United States, that the only way a witness, who has been offered a pardon, can preserve his or her right to Fifth Amendment protection, is to refuse the offered pardon. As we all know, far from refusing Biden’s preemptive pardon, Fauci not only received it, but also begged for it. Therefore, according to our own Supreme Court, Fauci had no constitutional right to have pled the Fifth a single time yesterday, much less 111 times.

The only possible argument Fauci could have for pleading the Fifth Amendment yesterday was to protect himself from being criminally charged for perjury, which Biden’s preemptive pardon would not have protected him from. However, if Fauci came to the hearing to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, he had no reason to fear prosecution for perjury, but if he came with no intention of telling the truth, he had good reason to fear prosecution for perjury. If Anthony Fauci is allowed to get away with this, yesterday’s senate committee hearing was a horrible waste of time, our Constitution is a thing of wax that our courts can form into anything they want it to be, and the bureaucratic state now has absolute immunity from all accountability. How frightful a prospect this presents us for our future!