Biden pardons Fauci, Milley and Jan. 6 committee staffers in final hours of presidency

 President Biden on Monday pardoned truth-challenged former chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, embattled retired General Mark Milley, and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — including Liz Cheney — just hours before President-elect Donald Trump was due to be sworn in as the 47th commander-in-chief.

“I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics,” Biden said in a statement. “But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing.”

Biden, 82, lauded the nation’s “dedicated, selfless public servants,” but noted they have been subjected to “ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties.” 

“In certain cases, some have even been threatened with criminal prosecutions, including General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, and the members and staff of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” the outgoing leader said. 

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President Biden made a few last minute pardons just hours before Donald Trump is set to be sworn in.AFP via Getty Images

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“These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” he added. 

Rumors had swirled for weeks after Trump’s 2024 victory that Biden’s team was pressuring him to issue pre-emptive pardons. 

All those listed in Biden’s pardons have crossed him politically and elicited his wrath.

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Biden pardoned House committee members who probed the Capitol riots.REUTERS

Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has publicly called Trump a “wannabe dictator” and detailed his conduct around the deadly Jan. 6 attacks during the House investigation. 

In a recent book by Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward, Milley was quoted calling Trump a“fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.”

Meanwhile, Fauci, who served as Biden’s chief medical advisor until his retirement in 2022, drew ire when he repeatedly dismissed the theory that the COVID-19 virus most likely leaked from a Chinese lab.

Biden's full statement on the preemptive pardons. Unclear if any/all of them will be accepted. No list of names or specifics appended. Also, this would remove 5th Amendment immunity if Congress subpoenas them. pic.twitter.com/G9RvZmu0Eu

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 20, 2025

“It feels good and I’m grateful to the president for doing it,” Fauci later told CNN about the pardon.

Republican critics in Congress have accused the 84-year-old doctor of lying to Congress on key aspects of his response to the pandemic. 

For instance, he denied to Congress that under his watch, the government funneled money to EcoHealth Alliance for gain-of-function research, which essentially entails taking natural viruses and exploring ways to make them more transmissible or deadly to humans. But congressional investigators have found evidence of federal dollars going to gain-of-function research in China.

Both federal watchdog and congressional investigations found evidence of federal dollars going toward risky gain-of-function research at the now-infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

“If there was ever any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the COVID pandemic, Biden’s pardon of Fauci forever seals the deal,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has called for Fauci to be thrown behind bars, wrote on X in response to the clemency move.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci drew criticism over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.Getty Images

“As Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I will not rest until the entire truth of the coverup is exposed.”

Biden also extended pardons to members of the since-defunct select House Jan. 6 committee, which includes former Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both Republicans, as well as the US Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers who testified before the committee. 

The ex-committee’s former Chairman Bennie Thompson (R-Miss.) previously said he was open to receiving a pre-emptive pardon, arguing that Trump and his team had made threats about targeting members of the old panel, which had made criminal referrals against the incoming president. 

Democrats had drawn attention to FBI director designee Kash Patel’s list of 60 so-called “deep state” actors as evidence that the incoming administration may target its rivals. That list included Miley but not Fauci or the since-defunct Jan. 6 Committee. Biden previously gave his troubled son Hunter Biden a “full and unconditional” pardon over a roughly 11-year period, quashing the gun and tax crimes for which two juries found him guilty. Amid the speculation that the outgoing president was eyeing a broader slate of preemptive pardons, Democrats splintered, fretting that the move may look like an admission of guilt. 

“I think preemptive pardons seem to imply guilt,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) previously told NewsNations” “The Hill Sunday.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also ripped into the concept of preemptive pardons.

“I am not a fan of these. I didn’t like the pardon of the president’s son. I didn’t think that that was prudent,” she told MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.“ “But I also am very concerned about what Trump is going to do with this Justice Department.”

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Gen Mark Milley was also pardoned.Getty Images

Despite Dems’ worries, Trump has seemingly sought to defuse fears that he would pursue retribution in a second administration.

“No, I’m not doing that unless I find something that is reasonable, but that’s not going to be my decision, that’s going to be Pam Bondi’s decision and to a different extent, Kash Patel,” Trump previously told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about whether he would request his administration open up probes.

During that same interview, however, Trump also rattled his critics by lashing out at the since-defunct House Select Jan. 6 Committee.

“For what they did, honestly they should go to jail,” he said of the panel, which included three former reps and six sitting reps.

“No, not at all,” he replied when asked if he’d sic his FBI director on them. “I think [the two law-enforcement agencies will] have to look at that. But I’m not going to [ask]. I’m going to focus on drill baby drill.”

Biden faced swift backlash from Republicans over the spate of preemptive pardons, which was somewhat muted by Trump’s forthcoming inauguration. 

“Ask yourself this: Why would Joe Biden pardon Fauci if he wasn’t a criminal who should be locked up for his lies, negligence, & greed that killed innocent Americans? Biden was already going out in shame and disgrace, but this is a new low,” activist Riley Gaines wrote on X.

“Absolutely Insane and Absolutely Predictable,” pundit Tim Pool bemoaned on X.

“@realDonaldTrump should ignore the preemptive, blanket pardons just issued by whoever is running the Biden WH. Specifically, President Trump should immediately court-martial Milley and proceed as appropriate in criminally investigating Fauci and any one else on the Biden’s list,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, said.

“The blanket pardons issued by Biden are invalid and constitutional nullities and should be considered to have no legal force or effect.”

https://nypost.com/2025/01/20/us-news/biden-pardons-fauci-milley-and-jan-6-committee-staffers-in-final-hours-of-presidency/

China vice president meets with Elon Musk ahead of Trump inauguration

 China's Vice President Han Zheng met on Sunday with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other members of the U.S. business community in Washington D.C., the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.

Han told Musk he "welcomed Tesla and other U.S. companies to seize the opportunities and share in the benefits of China's development, and contribute to the growth of China-U.S. economic and trade relations," the report said.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the inauguration after winning last year's presidential election. Xi has sent Han in his place.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-01-19/china-vice-president-meets-with-elon-musk-ahead-of-trump-inauguration

Chinese investments in U.S. plummeted since Trump’s first term, trend unlikely to reverse

 Chinese investments in the U.S. have dramatically declined since Donald Trump’s first term. This trend is unlikely to reverse as Trump returns to the White House, analysts said.

Trump has threatened additional tariffs on Chinese goods soon after his inauguration on Monday, building on an increasingly tough U.S. stance on Beijing.

“That’s probably the last thing on Trump’s mind, is trying to incentivize [Chinese companies] to invest here,” said Rafiq Dossani, an economist at U.S.-based think tank RAND.

“There’s an ideological mismatch. All the rhetoric is, keep China out of the U.S., let their products come in, which are low-end,” he said in an interview earlier this month. But other than that, “don’t, don’t let them come in.”

In the last several weeks, Emirati property giant Damac has pledged $20 billion to build data centers in the U.S., while SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son announced a $100 billion investment for artificial intelligence development in the U.S. over Trump’s four-year term.

Chinese investment deals in the U.S. have slowed drastically, according to the latest American Enterprise Institute data. Just $860 million flowed into the U.S. in the first six months of 2024, following $1.66 billion in 2023. That’s down sharply from $46.86 billion in 2017, when Trump began his first term.

At the peak, Chinese companies had made high-profile U.S. acquisitions, such as buying the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. But regulators on both sides have stemmed the flow.

“Chinese investment in the U.S. has slowed down dramatically since Beijing tightened control over capital outflows in 2017, followed by a series of regulatory policies in the U.S. aimed at excluding investments in certain sectors,” Danielle Goh, senior research analyst at Rhodium Group, said in an email.

In the “foreseeable future,” she doesn’t expect Chinese investments in the U.S. will recover the peak levels seen during the 2016 to 2017 period. Goh pointed out that instead of acquisitions, Chinese companies have turned more to small joint ventures with U.S. companies or greenfield investments, in which business are built from scratch.

For example, Chinese battery manufacturing company EVE Energy is the technology partner with a 10% stake in a joint venture with U.S. engine company Cummins’ Accelera division, Daimler Truck and PACCAR. The companies announced in June 2024 they were kicking off plans for a battery factory in Mississippi that would begin production in 2027 and create more than 2,000 jobs.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce has mostly helped Chinese e-commerce companies set up local offices, rather than establish manufacturing businesses, the nonprofit’s president Siva Yam told CNBC.

“Most of those investment nowadays tend to be a little bit smaller, so they are not on the radar, easier to approve,” he said, referring to regulators in both the U.S. and China. But he remained uncertain about whether Chinese companies could use investments to offset the impact of tariffs.

Individual U.S. states have grown increasingly wary of Chinese investment. Last spring, Politico reported that more than 20 states were passing new restrictions on land purchases by Chinese citizens and companies, or updating existing rules.

Chinese hackers in December targeted a government office that reviews foreign investment in the United States, CNN reported, citing U.S. officials. This was part of a wider breach of the Treasury Department, which declined a CNBC request for comment.

Deal-making strategy?

Trump has indicated tariffs may be used to coerce Chinese investment in the U.S.

In his speech accepting the Republican nomination, he said, “I will bring auto jobs back to our country, through the proper use of taxes, tariffs, and incentives, and will not allow massive auto manufacturing plants to be built in Mexico, China, or other countries.”

“The way they will sell their product in America is to BUILD it in America, and ONLY in America. This will create massive jobs and wealth for our country,” he said, according to an NBC News transcript.

Chinese battery giant CATL reportedly said in November it would build a U.S. plant if Trump allowed it. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Advocacy group Center for American Progress pointed out in December that during his first term, Trump cancelled restrictions on Chinese telecommunications company ZTE — just days after the Chinese government and Chinese banks invested $1 billion in a Trump Organization-affiliated theme park in Indonesia.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ZTE deal or the opportunities for Chinese companies to invest in the U.S.

Even if Trump welcomed more Chinese investment, or coerced it through tariffs, large investments are long-term processes that won’t happen overnight, pointed out Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Then there’s the unpredictability of the president-elect’s policies.

“Trump saying the U.S. is open to Chinese companies in 2025 is no guarantee [even] for 2029,” he said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/20/chinese-investment-in-the-us-isnt-likely-to-pick-up-under-trump.html

NC Voters Confirm Growing National Momentum For Term Limits

 by John Tamny via RealClearPolicy,

North Carolina’s legislature recently passed a Congressional Term Limits resolution in bipartisan fashion. The Tar Heel state is the third one in 2024 (joining Louisiana and Tennessee) to make the historic leap. 

Voter momentum favors limiting the amount of time those elected to Congress can serve. Which is a crucial step toward better times ahead.

To see why, simply stop and consider voter disdain for Congress. It’s well known. The latest polls from 2024 indicate that Congress’s approval rating languishes in the 19% range.

Less well known is voter support for congressional term limits. A recent Pew poll revealed that 86% of Democrats and 90% of Republicans favor term limits for Congress. Voter displeasure with Congress and support for term limits are arguably related.

To understand why, readers should never forget that being elected to Congress has little relation to success while in Congress. Those who seek election frequently promise “change” and all manner of plans meant to “throw the bums out” while disrupting “business as usual.” It doesn’t matter if the base of voters swings right or left, people want to be told that their vote will bring about change. Only for reality to mug the would-be change agents.  

Upon being sworn in, the newly elected to Congress quickly realize that they will change little to nothing. And they won’t because power in Congress resides within the hands of the very few, and the very few attain that power through a demonstrated ability to work well with, and raise funds for those they promised to throw out in the first place. Only for a status quo that has authored the growth of more and more government to run roughshod over those promising the change.

It’s been said that time in Congress changes the politician. The analysis is backwards. More realistically, politicians capable of being consistently re-elected change to reflect their evolution from a reformer who reforms nothing to a politician capable of getting things done based on a reasoned view that power rarely finds its way to those who vote no on everything, who want to change how things are done, or both. See former Congressman Ron Paul if you’re confused.

Which explains why term limits are so necessary. What limits terms in Congress limits time in Congress, which means the greatest attribute of term limits is that they would alter the incentives driving the elected.

Precisely because three terms is insufficient time for most any congressman to amass power, there will be reduced desire to acquire power to begin with. In other words, those who arrive in Washington with reform very much on their minds will have less time or reason to morph into the kind of politician that they arrived in Washington to neuter.

Which is why it’s hoped that Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee are a signal of a trend. People who run for high office aren’t inherently bad people, but the desire to be consequential once in high office brings out the bad in them. See Congress’s approval rating yet again.

The good news is that the solution to voter disdain for Congress and congressmen can be found in term limits. A lack of them presently warps the incentives of those who arrive in Washington with good intentions, but who quickly realize they must shed their idealistic ways if they want to live up to even a fraction of the idealism that first got them elected.    

John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, President of the Parkview Institute, a senior fellow at the Market Institute, and a senior economic adviser to Applied Finance Advisors (www.appliedfinance.com). His next book is The Deficit Delusion: Why Everything Left, Right and Supply Side Tell You About the National Debt Is Wrong. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/north-carolina-voters-confirm-growing-national-momentum-term-limits

Trump To Pull Security Clearance For CIA Contractors Colluding To Discredit Hunter Laptop Story

 President-elect Donald Trump will suspend the security clearances of 51 former intelligence officials who were found to have coordinated with the 2020 Biden campaign to discredit credible and serious allegations contained on Hunter Biden's laptop about his family's influence peddling operation.

According to the Fox News, citing a senior administration official, Trump will take action against the so-called "Spies Who Lie," as one of at least 100 executive orders he's expected to sign on his first day back in the Oval Office.

Not only did federal investigators eventually confirm that Hunter's laptop was authentic, a June 2024 report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Federal Government and the Permanent Select Subcommittee on Intelligence found that "The 51 former intelligence officials’ Hunter Biden statement was a blatant political operation from the start. It originated with a call from top Biden campaign official—and now Secretary of State—Antony Blinken to former Deputy Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Michael Morell.

"The Committees’ investigation revealed that without this outreach from Blinken, Morell would not have written the statement. Indeed, Morell told the Committees that the Blinken phone call “triggered” his intent to write the statement. The statement’s drafters were open about the goal of the project: “[W]e think Trump will attack Biden on the issue at this week’s debate”6 and “we want to give the [Vice President] a talking point to use in response.”

The Committees also found that:

• High ranking CIA officials, up to and including then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, were made aware of the Hunter Biden statement prior to its approval and publication.
• Some of the statement’s signatories, including Michael Morell, were on active contract with the CIA at the time of the Hunter Biden statement’s publication.
• After publication of the Hunter Biden statement, CIA employees internally expressed concern about the statement’s politicized content, acknowledging it was not “helpful to the Agency in the long run.”

It's going to be a fun week, eh?

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-yank-security-clearances-cia-contractors-who-colluded-discredit-hunter-biden-laptop

SCOTUS to Consider If Md Parents Can Opt Children Out Of Pro-LGBT Storybooks

 by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 17 agreed to hear a request from a group of Maryland parents to opt their young children out of having storybooks that promote LGBT lifestyles read to them.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Jan. 15, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The court granted the petition in Mahmoud v. Taylor in an unsigned order. No justices dissented, and the court did not explain its decision.

The petition was filed on Sept. 12, 2024, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit turned away the parents’ request for an injunction to halt the Montgomery County Board of Education’s policy of promoting the books.

The case goes back to November 2022, when the board mandated new “LGBTQ-inclusive” storybooks for elementary school students that promote gender transitions, Pride parades, and same-sex romance between young children.

The board instructed employees responsible for selecting the books to use an “LGBTQ+ Lens” and to question whether “cisnormativity,” “stereotypes,” and “power hierarchies” are “reinforced or disrupted,” the petition said.

Parents were initially told they could opt out on behalf of their children when the storybooks were read, according to the petition. The board changed its policy in March 2023. Beginning with the 2023–2024 academic year, the opt-out policy would no longer be in effect.

“If parents did not like what was taught to their elementary school kids, their only choice was to send them to private school or to homeschool,” the petition said.

Hundreds of parents, largely Eastern Orthodox Christians and Muslims, showed up at board meetings and testified that their respective religions required that young children not be exposed to instruction on gender and sexuality that was inconsistent with their religion.

After “parents emphasized how impressionable young children are and how they lack independent judgment to process such complex and sensitive issues,” the board members accused parents of promoting “hate” and likened them to “white supremacists” and “xenophobes,” according to the petition.

The parents sued after the board declined to accommodate them, arguing that they had a constitutional right to opt out of such instruction.

On Aug. 24, 2023, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman denied the parents’ application for an injunction to block the cancellation of the opt-out policy.

A divided Fourth Circuit panel upheld the ruling on May 15, 2024, holding that the parents had failed to demonstrate that an injunction was justified. The panel added that it took no view as to whether the parents would be able to produce enough evidence later in the proceeding to succeed in their case.

The panel also found that there was no evidence that the policy change burdened the parents’ right to free exercise of religion.

Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the parents, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case.

“Cramming down controversial gender ideology on 3-year-olds without their parents’ permission is an affront to our nation’s traditions, parental rights, and basic human decency.

“The Court must make clear: parents, not the state, should be the ones deciding how and when to introduce their children to sensitive issues about gender and sexuality,” he said in a statement.

It is unclear when the Supreme Court will hear the case.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the attorney for the Montgomery County Board of Education, Alan Schoenfeld of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale, and Dorr in New York City. No reply was received by publication time.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/supreme-court-will-consider-if-maryland-parents-can-opt-children-out-pro-lgbt-storybooks

Asian Stocks Rise as Trump and Xi Discuss Trade

 

• Trump to issue day-one executive orders, incl. on immigration
• Trump’s token rattles crypto market, attracting billions

Asian equities climbed, tracking US peers after a positive conversation between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping raised hopes for easing US-China tensions.

Shares advanced in Australia and Japan, with those in Hong Kong and mainland China also opening higher. A gauge of US-listed Chinese shares jumped 3.2% Friday as Trump described the pre-inauguration talk between the two leaders as “very good.” US futures were marginally lower in Asia with Wall Street closed on Monday for a holiday.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-19/asian-stocks-to-gain-as-trump-and-xi-discuss-trade-markets-wrap