The “horrible precedent” was a president threatening his political adversaries with harassment and prosecution, for the offense of opposing his criminality. Everything that follows is just a reaction to that
Everybody knows the circumstances under which the pardons are given, and “admission of guilt” isn’t a concern.
So, you’d prefer a President to say “I think these folks did nothing wrong, and therefore I’m going to let them rot in prison”?
Seriously, the notion of a pardon implying guilt has never made any sense whatsoever.
He’s the President, and therefore he has the pardon power, and therefore, yes, it is for him to decide that.
He most certainly didn’t set that precedent, because Ford beat him to it.
Where on the long, long list of major Biden scandals do these pardons land?
This made me think of the Duke lacrosse rape case where the accuser turned out to be a nut job and the prosecutor pressed the case for his own political benefit, even manipulating evidential procedures.
If the players had been convicted and sentenced, and then the North Carolina governor pardoned them, should they have said: “No, thank you, that’s an admission of guilt. We’ll sit in prison until we get a new trial.”
We don’t need to rehash the Duke case here, but it seems like an example where the pardon would be a welcome alternative to being in prison for something one didn’t do, and false and political prosecution.
Somewhere between jaywalking and spitting on the sidewalk.
At that: how about a hypothetical where it’s a death-penalty offense? So instead of just sitting there, the innocent person chooses between ’accept the pardon right as the pardoner explicitly notes that it’s not an indication of guilt’ or, if you prefer, ‘get executed.’
How are they supposed to admit their guilt if they haven’t been charged yet?
Just before the inauguration, it was announced that Biden has also issued blanket pardons to members of his family – his siblings James Biden, Francis Biden and Valerie Biden Owens, as well as brother-in-law John Owens and sister-in-law Sara Jones Biden.
This seems a bit . . . much? I haven’t heard that any of them are in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration.
Why pardon all of them, but not himself?
This and all the other arguments above in a similar vein are specious. As person on death row was already convicted of a crime. So they are not innocent in the justice system. People are, intentionally or not, conflating the criminal prosecution with some kind of admission of guilt to their personal god. That’s not what this is about.
Yes, the individual judges / justices are free to make their own decisions, but many of the current (and many more in the future) were nominated by Trump because they were on the list of the Federalist Society, and can be trusted to act in a certain manor. As an example, see Judge Eileen Cannon. So while the judiciary is technically independent of the executive, they are certainly biased towards the executive that put the individuals in position.
Trump pardoned a war criminal. I’ll start giving a shit when a Democratic president comes close to such a heinous act.
That one is easy, the same way they can accept a pardon for something they haven’t been charged for.
It’s not a precedent in the sense that Trump or his supporters are going to reference it if/when issuing their own pre-emptive pardons. They most certainly will bring up Biden’s.
Didn’t Ford do that with his pardon of Nixon?
What list of Biden scandals?
There’s a long long list of shit made up by MAGA, none of which stands up to scrutiny.
I approve of the pardons.
I do not think any reasonable person can say pardon = guilt. Nor that it will stop MAGA freaks.
I think he should have pardoned all the police who protected the capitol against the Jan 6th rioters.
I assumed that was sarcasm of some sort. Biden hasn’t had any scandals that I know of.
Well, duh 
The judiciary is supposed to be independent of the executive branch, yes. Currently there is a good deal of evidence that is no longer the case in this country.