There are several diaries just posted in the last few minutes about President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. This sort of thing happens a lot with breaking news, and I wasn’t going to add one more to the pile. But some of the diaries — and some of the comments — were more about this being a mistake on Biden’s part or how it will now give Trump cover for all kinds of nefarious pardons, so I decided to throw in my three cents as a diary of my own.
There is a highly academic and pedantic response to those arguments: bullshit.
In his statement about it, Biden argued that there would have been no prosecution, or at most there would have been a plea deal, which is standard in these sorts of cases — but the president’s enemies made Hunter a target in order to get at his father.
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.
Biden made his case. But that’s not good enough for some people here. Biden, as a Democrat, has to be pure because, otherwise, so goes the argument, Trump and the GOP will point to his example as an argument for how they should be allowed to do the same (worse).
At the risk of repeating myself: bullshit. Trump has already abused the pardon power (CNN, Jan. 24, 2021):
Trump eschewed the regular process and almost never consulted with the Justice Department’s clemency office, leading to some highly controversial pardons. Some of the experts said that while allowable, these pardons undercut anti-corruption efforts and undermined the rule of law. . . .
In one of his final acts in office, Trump pardoned his former strategist Steve Bannon, who was charged in 2020 with defrauding Trump supporters in a “build the wall” scheme. The pardon was especially controversial, given Bannon’s violent rhetoric and ties to “stop the steal” groups that attacked the Capitol.
Bannon, released from prison a week before the election, immediately went back to his place at Trump’s side. As Slate warns: Forget Project 2025. Steve Bannon Is Laying Out What’s Coming to Anyone Willing to Listen.
Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, whom Chris Christie had prosecuted for fiscal fraud, along with Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, on his way out of the White House. None of them had shown any remorse (unlike Hunter) or had any reason to get a pardon other than their connections to Trump. Now he has nominated Kushner to be ambassador to France. La belle France n’est pas amusée. France [is] riled by Trump pick of Charles Kushner as Paris envoy (Financial Times):
France’s establishment reacted with a mixture of resignation and muted scorn to president-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of real estate developer, pardoned felon and family connection Charles Kushner as US ambassador to France.
And that’s just the start of the list. Trump needed no excuse then, and needs none now. Biden did the right thing for Hunter because it was the right thing to do, the more so since the only reason Hunter needed a pardon in the first place is because the Republicans had singled him out for political persecution one degree removed.
PS: The knives are already out: Comer blasts Joe Biden’s pardon of son Hunter as avoiding ‘accountability’. Really? Hunter was charged, tried, convicted, not to mention having a standard plea bargain yanked out from under him because “accountability” wasn’t enough for those Republicans.
About that plea deal: Claims are that it was the judge, not political pressure, that killed the plea bargain. On the surface, that may be true, but as the NY Times reported last year:
[The prosecutor]changed [his position on a plea bargain] in the spring [of 2023], around the time a pair of I.R.S. officials on the case accused the Justice Department of hamstringing the investigation. Mr. Weiss suddenly demanded that Mr. Biden plead guilty to committing tax offenses.
Now, the I.R.S. agents and their Republican allies say they believe the evidence they brought forward, at the precise time they did, played a role in influencing the outcome, a claim senior law enforcement officials dispute. While Mr. Biden’s legal team agrees that the I.R.S. agents affected the deal, his lawyers have contended to the Justice Department that by disclosing details about the investigation to Congress, they broke the law and should be prosecuted. . . .
Republicans, who waged an all-out war to discredit the deal, are seeking to maximize the political damage to President Biden, seeing it as a counter to the four criminal prosecutions of Mr. Trump, their party’s presidential front-runner.
Historians may have to wait until they gain access to government internal documents sometime in the far future, but as it stands we cannot say that the Republicans have clean hands in the matter.
-------------------------— Updated 2 Dec 7:50 AM PST -------------------------------------—
I see a number of pundits (and Republican politicians, of course) are denouncing the pardon; Alexander Burns called it a “parting insult” and “a rich gift to those who want to blow up the justice system as we know it.” (He also blamed Biden for a “national crime wave” that never happened (No, crime has not 'skyrocketed' under Joe Biden, as Rep. Nancy Mace claimed). Etc.
Let me offer a dose of reality to Burns, William Kristol, and others: Trump and his GOP lackeys/cult followers* tried to blow up the justice system last time and are openly planning to do it this time. Our justice system is kaput for at least the next 4 years; get used to it. If IOKIYAR, then it’s OK for Biden. If it wasn’t OK for Biden, it won’t be OK for Trump. I await the moment when these same howlers and screamers over Hunter’s pardon make the same noises when Trump does it for his family and friends. (Oh, wait he already did; see above.)
*The difference between “lackey” and “cult follower” is that the former know Trump is evil but do his bidding out of self-interest, while the latter have deluded themselves into believing Trump was sent by God and can do no wrong.
