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On Monday, just hours before leaving office, President Joe Biden announced that he pardoned several individuals who may be the targets of political prosecutions in the incoming Trump administration. Incoming President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened “retribution” against perceived enemies.

According to a statement from the White House, Biden’s pardons went to former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, former federal public health official Dr. Anthony Fauci, and “the Members of Congress and staff who served on the Select Committee” investigating the January 6, 2020, attack on the US Capitol, and “the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the Select Committee.“

For more than 150 years, the Supreme Court has understood the president’s power to issue pardons as entirely within his discretion; typically, neither Congress nor the courts may intervene. Yet, while the Constitution permits Biden to pardon whoever he wants, such a pardon won’t necessarily protect its recipient from everything Trump or his allies in government might do to make life difficult for Trump’s perceived enemies.

Current law provides that people who are pardoned receive broad legal........

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