Biden’s former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield she blasted her old boss on Tuesday over the controversial presidential pardons he issued shortly before leaving office.
A CNN political commentator criticized now-former President Biden’s Inauguration Day pardons as contrary to his rhetoric about upholding the “rule of law.”
“It was a disappointing move,” she said, adding: “I was disappointed by it. I think he spoke so eloquently about the need to preserve the rule of law.”
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Former Biden White House official Kate Bedingfield strongly condemned President Biden’s last-minute pardon of his family on Tuesday.
Biden pardoned his family members James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens and Francis Biden on Monday, just minutes before President Trump was sworn in.
In a statement accompanying the pardons, Biden said he was defending them from “politically motivated investigations.”
Before leaving office, so did Biden issued pardons earlier on Monday for dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley and people associated with the House Select Committee investigation into January 6th.
The Inauguration Day pardons follow high-profile pardons that Biden issued late last year, most notably for his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal charges related to illegal firearms possession and tax fraud.
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On Monday, Biden issued several preemptive pardons to prominent critics of Donald Trump. (Left to right: (Photo by William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images), (Photo by Mandel Ngan – Pool/Getty Images), (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images), (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images ))
Bedingfield suggested that Biden’s last-minute pardons were hypocritical, reminding viewers that the former president once strongly condemned the idea of Trump pardoning members of his own family at the end of the president’s first administration.
“When he was coming into office in 2020, he talked about the idea of Trump pardoning his family and said it would send a bad message,” the former Biden official said, adding that this criticism of Trump’s pardons extends to Biden’s.
“And I think it’s hard to say it wasn’t yesterday. I’ll be completely honest. I think it was disappointing,” she said.
However, Bedingfield gave Biden some cover, noting that his position on changing the pardon could reflect Trump’s alleged willingness to attack his political opponents.
“I also think you have to recognize that we’re now in the era of Trump 2.0 where Trump has made it very clear that he intends to use the long arm of government to go after his political enemies, and I can understand why Joe Biden might look at his family and say, ‘Do I will do everything in my power to protect them on the way out,’ she said.
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“As a human being, I can understand that argument,” she added.
Bedingfield also said she doesn’t think Biden’s pardons give Trump any cover for his behavior while in office.
Like one of his own first action office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order pardoning more than 1,500 people accused of crimes stemming from the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The order requires the Federal Bureau of Prisons to act immediately upon receiving the pardon.
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