Biden pardoned his son for good reason
Even if he's being coy about it.
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President Biden has taken a lot of heat from both Republicans and Democrats over the pardon of his sole surviving son, Hunter. On the surface, the criticism is valid.
There’s no doubt the pardon’s optics are bad for Biden, who vowed unequivocally on multiple occasions this year that he wouldn’t pardon his son. Issuing a pardon now during the lame duck period of his presidency gives credence to accusations that he blatantly lied for political expedience, first for his own candidacy and later on behalf of Kamala Harris. But the circumstances have changed dramatically in recent weeks.
Biden admittedly didn’t communicate this well in his December 1 statement announcing Hunter’s pardon. He claimed he’d “wrestled” with the decision but now believes “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” he said.
While it’s true that the charges against Hunter are absurd, Biden’s explanation doesn’t really account for why he changed his position. But even if the president won’t come out and admit it, something important is in fact different now: Kash Patel is Trump’s pick to be FBI director.
Patel is a conspiracy theorist and QAnon fan who has vowed to weaponize the DOJ against Hunter Biden in particular and the Biden family in general. Trump moving to put him in charge of the FBI signals that he plans to fulfill his most authoritarian campaign promises. Against that backdrop, Biden’s decision to pardon his son isn’t a close call.
What Biden *didn’t* say in his pardon statement
When Hunter was convicted last June on three felony gun charges, Biden vowed he wouldn’t get involved, saying, "I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”
A federal jury found that Hunter violated laws intended to keep drug addicts from owning guns, but according to legal experts, those charges are rarely brought to trial unless part of some larger crime.
Three months later, Hunter pleaded guilty to failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2014 and 2019. (Hunter paid the full tax bill in 2020.) Once again, legal experts confirmed that criminal, rather than civil, prosecutions for such offenses are “very rare.”
President Biden, however, still refused to intervene. This continued even after the election. When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked two days after Trump’s victory if Biden would pardon Hunter, she said, "We've been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
This explains why California Gov. Gavin Newsom feels Biden lied to him.
“I took the president at his word,” Newsom told Politico. “So by definition, I’m disappointed and can’t support the decision.”
But if Biden broke his promises, it wasn’t without reason.
Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, is a far-right zealot. During an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast late last year, he said, “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you.”
Ron Filipkowski monitored hundreds of Patel’s media appearances in recent years and writes that he “ranted and raved for the past four years on every right-wing podcast in America that he was going to get Hunter Biden for things he has never been prosecuted for.” (Watch Patel call for more Hunter Biden prosecutions below during a June 2023 appearance on Bannon’s show.)
It’s not just Patel. Trump’s new attorney general nominee, Pam Bondi, not only cheered “lock her up” chants at the 2016 RNC, but also served as the Trump impeachment team’s “Hunter Biden specialist” during his early 2020 impeachment trial. It’s easy to see why Biden is concerned about his son being persecuted by the new administration.
If Biden’s pardon was motivated by concerns that Trump wanted to use the levers of power to torture his son, Republicans wasted no time proving he had good reason to be worried. After news of the pardon broke, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis went on Fox and said the congressional investigation of Hunter Biden “must continue.”
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Trump, of course, was very open about the fact he ran for president to inflict retribution on his enemies. According to NPR, he threatened to prosecute his political enemies at least 100 times on the campaign trail. Patel’s book even included a list of more than 60 potential targets. This is why Hunter’s pardon covers any potential federal crimes he may have committed from over the past decade: It prevents a never-ending fishing expedition.
Norms won’t save us
The reality is that previous presidents have pardoned people under far shadier circumstances for far more serious crimes.
Trump, for instance, pardoned a number of people who were convicted of crimes in connection with investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and his campaign’s involvement in it, including Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress to protect Trump. He also pardoned his 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was convicted for tax and banking crimes in 2018 and pleaded guilty to “conspiracy against the United States” and witness tampering. He pardoned 2016 campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who admitted that he’d lied to investigators during the Russia probe. He pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who he told to “stay strong” during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
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Trump also used his pardon power to bestow favor upon his allies and loyalists. He pardoned former GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter and his wife Margaret, who’d misused campaign funds. He pardoned former GOP Rep. Chris Collins, who’d pleaded guilty to securities fraud. He pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, who violated federal campaign finance laws. He pardoned fellow convicted felon Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and recently appointed him ambassador to France. Trump also considered proactively pardoning his own family members. (Biden isn’t even the first modern president to pardon a blood relative: Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton on the day he left office.)
Gerald Ford infamously pardoned Richard Nixon, which critics denounced as a “corrupt bargain” to shield Nixon from accountability for his crimes and elevate Ford to the presidency. George H.W. Bush pardoned a half dozen people for their involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal, including former secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who’d been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Clinton pardoned financier Marc Rich, a major donor to the Democratic Party and Clinton’s presidential library.
While Biden is being lambasted for pardoning his son, the fact of the matter is he’s actually gone above and beyond in his defense of norms, probably to the determent of the country. Biden didn’t fire FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2021 and replace him with an outspoken liberal who’d bashed Trump non-stop on MSNBC. He certainly didn’t nominate Adam Schiff as attorney general or even former Sen. Doug Jones.
Instead, Biden picked Federalist Society member Merrick Garland, a moderate institutionalist, with the express intent of ensuring DOJ independence. Garland appointed special counsels to investigate both Hunter and Joe Biden, yet Republicans still claim Garland is a leftist radical who has “weaponized” the DOJ against Biden’s political opponents even while they support Trump’s MAGA cronies being confirmed as attorney general and FBI director.
After Hunter’s pardon, The New York Times ran the article, “In Pardoning His Son, Biden Echoes Some of Trump’s Complaints.” This is maddening false equivalency that, unfortunately, Biden’s pardon statement enabled. Biden didn’t mention Trump, Patel, or Bondi by name and explain why they pose an active threat in the future, not just to Hunter but to the rule of law itself.
Biden used to (accurately) call Trump a threat to democracy all the time, and leveraging the criminal justice system for political revenge is what authoritarian strongmen do. But after the election, Biden is trying to pretend everything is normal.
Republicans who object to Hunter Biden’s pardon are in no way arguing in good faith. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who backed a felon for president, declared that “trust in our justice system has been almost irreparably damaged by the Bidens and their use and abuse of it.” Many Democrats also joined in the pile on. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, for instance, said Biden put “personal interest ahead of duty.” He added: “I am worried that one of the things that will come from this is that the next president, who himself is not committed to the rule of law at all, will use President Biden's pardon of his son as a precedent to erode the rule of law.”
Trump obviously needs no such permission slip. His nominations have already made it clear that he plans to wield power like a weapon against his enemies, rule of law be damned. That’s why Biden pardoned his son, even if he’s dancing around it publicly.
That’s it for today
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I have to respectfully disagree with the premise of your post. President Joe Biden did the right thing in pardoning his son and he deserves no criticism for how he chose to do it. The wrongful prosecution of his son should never have been allowed to get this far. The prosecution was vengeful, vindictive and without legal basis or precedent. Merrick Garland, legal puritan that he is, should have put a stop to it. Joe Biden's pardon is righteous. He deserves full throated support for his action, not a sorry he's such a fuck up apology.
While it is unfortunate that the Right-wing dominates the mediascape, and apparently too many Americans are not able to see through this, I am someone who not only welcomes Biden pardoning his son, but would like to see him pardon a lot more people as is his right to do. In addition, I think he and his family should think about buying a house in Ireland if they have not done so already, and getting ready to get the H--- out of Dodge!