WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, in an extraordinary use of the powers of the presidency in his final hours to guard against potential “revenge” by the incoming Trump administration.

Biden’s Fauci pardon was greeted by many in the vast and chaotic world of Covid suspicion as proof the scientist and retired public health official had been guilty of some poorly-defined crime all along. It also demonstrated how closely mainstream Republicans are aligned with the deepest reaches of the Covid conspiracy pool.