Published: 4:17pm, 17 Mar 2025Updated: 4:32pm, 17 Mar 2025
US President Donald Trump has said his predecessor’s eleventh-hour pardons of members of Congress who investigated the January 6 insurrection were “void, vacant and of no further force or effect”, signalling his administration may attempt to upend more than a century of law and practice for presidential pardons.
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In a statement on his Truth Social platform just after midnight Monday Washington time, Trump said the pardons were void because Joe Biden signed them with an autopen.
His comments follow similar arguments from the conservative Heritage Foundation that Biden used an autopen based on seemingly identical signatures found on several Biden documents. Trump in his Truth Social post did not present any evidence.
The pardon power has long been considered one of the most absolute powers a president has – and courts have been reluctant to put any limits on how they’re granted.
While Trump acknowledged the courts should ultimately decide on the validity of the pardons, his comments open the possibility that the Justice Department may attempt to prosecute some of the president’s biggest political adversaries.
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They include former congresswoman Liz Cheney, retired general Mark Milley and infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci, all pardoned on the last day of Biden’s presidency after Trump had threatened on the campaign trail to prosecute them.