President Joe Biden, in deciding to grant a broad pardon to his son, Hunter, asked the American people to understand why a father would make such a decision.
The president is asking too much.
Certainly, parents want to do what they can to spare their children from suffering, but most parents don’t have the power to absolve criminal convictions.
Had Biden waited a few weeks to see what Hunter’s sentence would be and then commuted any prison term, that would have been more tolerable. But the unconditional pardon not only spares Hunter of the possibility of incarceration, it also presumably wipes clean the slate of any potential financial penalties for his failure to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes.
It’s not clear what if anything Hunter still owes on those back taxes. He reportedly took out a loan to pay off the IRS after he came under investigation, but it’s not been disclosed by the U.S. Justice Department if the full amount owed — including interest and penalties — has been satisfied.
The pardon reneges on Joe Biden’s own promise, including as late as last month, that he would not pardon his son, pledging to not interfere with the criminal justice process. Biden’s excuse for going back on his word is his claim that the investigation and prosecution of Hunter were politically motivated. Although that may be somewhat true, it also sounds exactly like something Donald Trump has said regarding his own legal troubles, and which Joe Biden previously tried to avoid mimicking. It also should be noted that the prosecution of Hunter Biden was handled by a special counsel who was appointed by the Democratic president’s own attorney general.
Especially troubling is that the pardon not only excuses Hunter Biden for the tax and gun crimes for which he has been convicted, it also absolves him of any other federal crimes he may have committed going back a decade. That would cover presumably some suspicious and lucrative business deals he made with foreign entities while Joe Biden was serving as vice president.
The outgoing president may say that he had to do this to protect his son from Trump’s obsession with Biden’s family. The president-elect has threatened to seek retribution, using the muscle of the U.S. Justice Department and FBI, against his perceived enemies. Still, it sets a horrible precedent. Any president could try to shield family members and friends from future prosecution by issuing broad pre-emptive pardons — the promise of which could invite corruption from anyone well connected to the White House.
Although it’s true that Biden will not be the first president to pardon family members, he is only the third. Neither of those previous pardons — one by Bill Clinton of his brother, the other by Donald Trump of his daughter’s father-in-law — were as far-reaching as this.
“No one is above the law,” Joe Biden has said when referring to the multiple indictments and one state conviction that Trump received between the Republican’s two terms in office.
We knew that Trump doesn’t believe that. Biden has demonstrated he doesn’t really either.
