Just before his term expired on Monday morning, President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons for multiple family members he fears will be targeted by politically motivated investigations.

The pardons extended to his brother James Biden and wife Sara Jones Biden, his younger sister, Valerie Biden Owens and husband, John Owens, and his other brother Francis Biden. They cover any nonviolent offense that any of the five may have committed since 2014.

Biden previously pardoned his son, Hunter, after initially saying he would not do so. Hunter’s foreign dealings, drug use and 2024 federal gun case in Delaware have put the president’s son at the center of many controversies.

In his first act as a former president, Biden chose not to address a small gathering upon the landing of his helicopter at Joint Base Andrews. He and Jill Biden were flown there after President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump saw them off from Washington.

At 82, Biden leaves a lengthy legacy of public service that few in American history have matched. Following a stint as a young county councilman during the Vietnam War era, Biden was first reelected to the Senate from Delaware in 1972 — shortly after which a tragic car crash killed his then-wife, Neilia, and 1-year-old daughter, Naomi.

Over the years — including 36 as a senator, eight as vice president and four as president — Biden’s ability to keep his pulse on the center of his party’s attitude toward almost every issue allowed him to befriend segregationists and progressives alike. Biden’s veteran presence in Washington led Barack Obama to pick him as a running mate and America to choose him as the post-Trump leader who could best restore “normalcy” to the White House in 2020.

But in reality, Biden’s long farewell began in April 2023, when the octogenarian president launched his reelection bid.

Facing persistent inflation, allegations of cognitive decline and a surge of illegal immigration the administration seemed unwilling to address, Biden’s stubborn persistence — once his greatest strength — became his undoing. As the election neared, the war in Gaza caused the 2020 Democratic coalition to fray while the supposed decline of Biden was confirmed on an Atlanta debate stage.

Following Biden’s withdrawal from the race last July, Republicans successfully framed Vice President Kamala Harris as an equal in the administration’s failures who was complicit in covering up her boss’ health.

For example, vice presidential candidate JD Vance and others asserted Harris could “fix” issues like the U.S.-Mexico border surge “right now,” which relegated Biden — remarkably, as a sitting president — to the political wilderness. It was a position from which the 46th president would never recover, as speculative reports about a breakdown in the Biden-Harris relationship continue to swirl.

With Trump’s victory over Harris, Biden will likely go down as the only person to defeat Trump in an election; yet his own presidency will be defined by how it measures up to the Trump eras both preceding and succeeding him. While few Democrats have shown anything but respect for Biden publicly, candidates to lead the Democratic National Committee into 2025 and beyond have all suggested the party needs to rebuild from the ground up.

Long insistent that he would be a transitional leader who merely “passed the torch” to a younger generation of Democrats, Biden instead passes the torch right back to Trump and leaves Washington as the product of a bygone era.

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