Federal judge did not invalidate Joe Biden's preemptive pardons

"BIDEN PARDONS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL! 7th Circuit Judge Joseph Barron ruled that there is no provision to pardon someone who hasn't been formally charged, laying the foundation to have the pardons expunged," says a January 28, 2025 Instagram post.

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Screenshot from Instagram taken February 5, 2025

The same claim has circulated elsewhere on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X, TikTok, Tumblr and Gettr.

Trump has repeatedly sworn "retribution" on political opponents and those who pursued and were involved in criminal prosecutions against him.

Hours before Trump was sworn in as president on January 20, Biden issued a preemptive pardon to his three siblings, along with government officials including retired general Mark Milley, former chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci and lawmakers Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff, members of a congressional committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Biden said the pardons "should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing," arguing they were to prevent the group from becoming targets of malicious prosecution.

The US Constitution gives the president authority to grant pardons to individuals convicted of federal crimes, except in cases of impeachment. Although someone can refuse a presidential pardon, there are very few exceptions to the power (archived here).

The Department of Justice's pardon attorney says it is "highly unusual" for a president to pardon an individual before they are indicted or convicted. However, there are several notable examples, such as when president Gerald Ford preemptively pardoned Richard Nixon in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, but before prosecutors filed charges (archived here).

Biden's younger brother James, who was included in the pardons, has come under scrutiny for some of his past business dealings and allegations of influence peddling.

However, the claim that Biden's pardons have been ruled unconstitutional is false.

No Judge Barron

Some of the posts contain the logo for the website "America's Last Line of Defense" (ALLOD), a network of satirical news websites that contains the disclaimer "nothing on this page is real." 

Christopher Blair, founder of ALLOD, told AFP many share his posts because they "fit with their confirmation-biased narrative of the world." AFP has reported on dozens of false claims that trace back to Blair's sites.

A keyword search reveals one of the sites affiliated with ALLOD has published similar stories about a federal judge named Joseph Barron ruling Biden's pardons unconstitutional, and the organization's Facebook page posted the same graphic the day after Trump's inauguration.

There is also no judge by the name Barron serving on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, nor on the Federal bench in the US states of Illinois, Indiana or Wisconsin, over which that appellate court has jurisdiction (archived here and here).

Sites associated with ALLOD have repeatedly used the name "Joseph Barron" in fictitious articles.

AFP has debunked other claims about US politics here.