Minister of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra warned about the impact of a preventive presidential pardon for people like Dr. Anthony Fauci just hours after President Biden said in an interview that he was still thinking about it.
“It breaks my heart to think that we’re going to use the pardon process in a way that’s going to follow the whims of whoever’s in the White House,” said Becerra, who previously served as California attorney general before taking over at HHS. in an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday. Becerra noted that he was speaking from his legal background, not from his position in Biden’s cabinet.
“I think we should really value that power, which only the president has,” he continued. Because otherwise it becomes pedestrian, and it’s used anywhere, and I don’t think it should be like that.
President Biden and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra (AP Newsroom)
When the HHS secretary was asked directly if he meant the president should not pardon Fauci, who was Biden’s former chief medical adviser during the pandemic and served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for several decades, Becerra declined to elaborate.
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“I’m not going to try to interpret what you’re hearing; I’m just telling you what I think,” he replied.
Becerra’s comments came hours after Biden’s final interview as president with a print publication, during which he said preemptive pardons for Trump’s political targets were still under consideration.
President-elect Trump’s nominees for FBI director and attorney general, Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, have previously indicated they favor using the Justice Department to attack people they believe have unfairly targeted Trump.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress and some of Trump’s top transition advisers, such as Elon Musk, have argued that Fauci should be prosecuted for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
dr. Anthony Fauci is sworn in before testifying before a House subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic on June 3, 2024 in Washington, DC (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Trump’s nominee to succeed Becerra, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said while running for president — before joining Trump’s team — that he would prosecute Fauci if he won the election in November and his attorney general found that crimes had been committed in Fauci’s handling of the coronavirus. During the pandemic, Fauci was accused of working to evade public records laws and lying to Congress in an apparent effort to cover up the origin of the virus.
Democrats are divided over whether Biden should offer preemptive pardons to public officials who could be politically targeted by Trump.
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“If we seriously want to stop Trump’s authoritarian ambitions, we must act decisively and use every tool at our disposal. Norms and traditions alone will not stop – Trump has shown time and time again that he is willing to ignore them in order to consolidate power and punish his opponents,” he said. said Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., in a statement last month urging Biden to issue a general pardon for Trump’s political enemies. “The time for cautious restraint is over. We must act urgently to counter these threats and prevent Trump from abusing his power.”
President Biden said he is considering preemptive pardons based on President-elect Trump’s nominations for key posts. (Getty Images)
Legal experts said Biden has the authority to issue preemptive pardons, citing the precedent set by former President Gerald Ford when he granted Richard Nixon a blanket pardon for all crimes committed while in office, even though Nixon was not charged with anything after resigning after the Watergate scandal.
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Fox News Digital reached out to HHS for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
