Rich Lowry Says Two Presidential Mass Pardons Don't Make A Right

Photo: AFP

In an effort to sneak one in under the radar before Donald Trump assumed control at noon, outgoing President Joe Biden issued last-minute preemptive pardons to several family members, including his brothers James and Frank, as well as to National Security Advisor Gen. Mark Milley and former NIAID head Dr. Anthony Fauci. Not to be outdone, incoming President Donald Trump barely let the echoes of his inaugural speech fade away before he signed more than 100 executive orders, including a blanket pardon to more than 1,500 January 6th rioters at the Capitol Building. National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning show to analyze the dueling pardons, starting with Biden’s decision to pardon his family.

“The only reason you need to pardon these people,” Lowry told host Larry Mendte, “is because there is a family influence-peddling business that’s spread money to every single member of the family, apparently, so he just wants to immunize them. And then, it’s one thing to be worried about what Trump might do and how he might engage and politicize prosecutions. Well, if you’re really worried about that, you shouldn’t have prosecuted him for political reasons and got this whole ball rolling. So the whole mess is of his making, but it’s an appropriate way for this pathetic President to go out the door.”

Lowry applied an even-handed stance towards Trump’s pardoning of the January 6th rioters. “I prefer a process where the Justice Department reviews every case and you see if the person’s expressing remorse and is truly deserving or there’s a miscarriage of justice or an over-sentence, and then you pardon them. And I think that there’s a good case that you needed to comb through the January 6th defendants and see to whom that standard would apply and who it wouldn’t, instead of this blanket pardon… I’m open to the idea that there was over-sentencing here, but I don’t like the way he went about it.”

Photo Credit: Getty Images


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