Outgoing President Joe Biden, with his preemptive pardons for Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and members of the House Jan. 6 committee, used his powers to "politicize the office of the president as he leaves," Sen. Marsha Blackburn told Newsmax on Monday.
"We are not surprised by this. He had said he was going to issue these pardons. He has issued more pardons and commutations than anybody," the Tennessee Republican told Newsmax's Kilmeny Duchardt.
"Now what we know is that obviously he thinks and his staff thinks they all did something wrong. They were outside of the law. So he is going to issue this preemptive pardon when the American people find out, whatever it was that they did, then they won't be at risk of going to jail."
Blackburn said investigations of Fauci must continue, even though he's been pardoned just before President-elect Donald Trump's swearing in.
"My hope is that we find out exactly what happened and why it happened," she said. "The American people deserve to know that. They also want to know what happened with COVID. Why did they cover up the information on a lab leak, which we are now finding out?
"Why did they make these rules that we had to be 6 feet apart, we had to have a vaccine, and we had to have a booster? People deserve to know that."
Further, it was all funded by taxpayer money, said Blackburn.
"The taxpayer has footed the bill for this," she said. "They deserve the answers for how their money was spent."
Meanwhile, Trump is planning to sign several executive orders, and Blackburn said that Congress will have legislation addressing several of his issues.
"I have the 'Remain in Mexico' bill and making certain that people stay in their country or in a third country when they claim asylum," she said. "That's important to do to stop this push at the southern border. So, yes, he will take the executive action. That's the immediate stop to make it statutory and law."
The Senate's upcoming business will also include the confirmations of several of Trump's cabinet nominees, and Blackburn said she hopes that they will all be approved.
"Every president deserves to have their Cabinet," she said.
Blackburn also commented on Trump's move Sunday to institute a 90-day evaluation period concerning the divestiture of TikTok after a ban on its being owned by ByteDance, a company linked to the Chinese government.
"It is imperative that we make certain that the American citizens' data is not being mined by the Chinese Communist Party," said Blackburn. "We don't oppose TikTok as a platform, but it is the participation of the Chinese Communist Party in that data. That's what we oppose.
"This is where the issue has gotten so controversial, is because it's being put as if Republicans are against free speech. We know that's exactly the opposite, as they have tried to restore free speech to so many social media platforms."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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