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Pulitzer-winning Washington Post journalist slams paper over Trump-Biden op-ed: ‘Utterly lost its soul’
The Washington Post journalist David Maraniss expressed his disppointment at an op-ed on the pardons by Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
A Pulitzer-winning journalist at The Washington Post slammed the celebrated newspaper over an op-ed it published on Tuesday on the pardons signed by Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
David Maraniss, an associate editor at The Washington Post, said the publication has "utterly lost its soul".
"The Washington Post editorial this morning essentially equating Biden's questionable pardons with Trump's outrageous Jan. 6 pardons was unconscionable," Maraniss wrote on social media platform BlueSky.
"The newspaper I've been part of for 48 years has utterly lost its soul."
Maraniss, 75, is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and won a Pulitzer for his 1992 coverage of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. He has authored several books, including a biography of Barack Obama.
Donald Trump signed a series of pardons since starting his second presidential term on Monday. He granted full pardons to some 1,500 people convicted or still being prosecuted for their roles in the January 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol. He signed pardons for 23 anti-abortion protesters whom the White House said were prosecuted under his predecessor Joe Biden's administration. The US president, on Wednesday, pardoned two police officers who were convicted over the death of a 20-year-old Black man in a car chase in Washington in 2020.
Experts worry that the indiscriminate release of everyone charged in the Capitol Hill riots could embolden extremists and make political violence more common.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to former Covid pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci, retired general Mark Milley and close family members to shield them from "politically motivated prosecutions" under the Trump administration. He also gave pardons to members and staff of the US House committee that investigated the Capitol Hill attack by Trump's supporters.
What The Washington Post op-ed said on the Trump and Biden pardons
The op-ed by Jason Willick was titled 'The Biden-Trump pardons show collapsing executive restraint.'
“It’s debatable which president’s abuse of the pardon power on Monday — Joe Biden’s or Donald Trump’s — was more damaging,” said the op-ed.
Willick said “the root of the problem isn’t the scope of the pardon power; it’s the collapse of restraint on the exercise of executive power in general.”
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