By pardoning his son, President Joe Biden may have just given President-elect Donald Trump a precious gift on a silver platter.
After years of vowing that he would not pardon Hunter Biden, the president finally reneged and let his son off the hook. In fact, he not only pardoned him for crimes for which he was convicted/pled guilty but also for any federal crimes committed between 2014 and 2024.
It must be nice to have a president for a dad, right?
President Biden’s decision has sparked criticism from both the left and right and represents one of the broadest pardons in recent memory. Democrats slammed the president for not applying the same concept of law and order to his son as he has with others. Republicans concurred but also took more of an issue with the fact that he lied about pardoning his son for years.
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Hunter had pleaded guilty to charges related to unpaid taxes and tax evasion in September. He was also convicted in June of lying on an application about his drug use when he purchased a firearm.
The president-elect chimed in on the matter, referring to it as a “miscarriage of justice.”
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) December 2, 2024
READ MORE: Trump Reacts to Hunter Biden Pardon: ‘Such an Abuse and Miscarriage of Justice!’
Lawyer and political commentator Jonathan Turley also gave his two cents, arguing that “when you become president, your role is to put the nation first, and here we have a president who is putting his family first.”
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— Citizen Caller (@CitizenCallerUS) December 2, 2024
"when you become president, your role is to put the nation first, and here we have a president who is putting his family first."
"This is a president who didn't just simply… pic.twitter.com/DkTIgsTeLN
READ MORE: Jonathan Turley Rips Biden’s Pardon of His Son to Shreds
In a statement explaining his rationale for pardoning Hunter, Biden claimed his son was essentially railroaded by the justice system, which was supposedly weaponized against him for political purposes.
The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.
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. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.
President Biden further argued, “Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.”
Some of this sounds familiar, does it not? What the president said about his son being targeted over politics, whether true or false, definitely applies to those who were convicted for their supposed involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the United States Capitol building. Indeed, many of these individuals are facing lengthy prison sentences for simply taking a stroll around the building without engaging in violence.
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Trump pledged multiple times on the campaign trail that he would pardon at least some of those who were unfairly caught up by the authorities and targeted for their political beliefs. Predictably, folks on the left are already crying foul, claiming it would be a miscarriage of justice.
It is pretty much a foregone conclusion that Democrats will make the same arguments when Trump issues pardons for the J6ers. We can already hear them wailing about it on the airwaves and interwebs. However, Biden’s pardon will take the air out of their sails.
After all, if Biden can pardon his son claiming political malfeasance, why can’t Trump do the same for the J6ers? Of course, this won’t stop folks on the left from complaining about it, but it will matter far less now that their president has done essentially the same thing for a family member.
Biden was obviously thinking only of his son and not considering the fallout from this decision. Yet, while Hunter might be in the clear, the president’s decision is anything but helpful for Democrats who plan to use whatever ammo they can find or concoct against Trump after he takes office.
