Great curtain speech
Oh ffs.
Biden has issued a sweeping pardon of his godawful corrupt sleazy son.
President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he has pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who faced sentencing this month for federal tax and gun convictions, marking a reversal as he prepares to leave office.
“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” the president said in a statement. It is a “full and unconditional pardon,” according to a copy of the executive grant of clemency.
This official grant of clemency cannot be rescinded by President-elect Donald Trump.
By pardoning his son, Joe Biden has reneged on a public promise that he made repeatedly before and after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. The president and his top White House spokesperson said unequivocally, including after Trump won the 2024 election, that he would not pardon Hunter Biden or commute his sentence.
Just kidding folks!
The broadly crafted pardon explicitly grants clemency for the tax and gun offenses from his existing cases, plus any potential federal crimes that Hunter Biden may have committed “from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” This time frame, importantly, covers his entire tenure on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and much of his other overseas work, including in China. He had faced scrutiny for his controversial foreign business dealings, and Trump has repeatedly said he should be prosecuted for his activities in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Which is laughable coming from Trump, but Trump is not the only one who considers Hunter Biden opportunistically corrupt at a minimum.
Joe Biden said in his statement that he decided to issue the pardon because his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” saying that “Hunter was treated differently” from people who commit similar crimes.
How many people do commit similar crimes? How many people get the chance to leverage Daddy’s high office the way Hunter Biden did?
He said in his statement, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice. … I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
But that’s the whole point, you blockhead: you’re supposed to separate the two. The fact that sleazy profiteering Hunter is your kid should be irrelevant to his sentencing and punishment. It’s a glaring abuse of power to pardon him.
This is the latest instance of an outgoing president using the pardon power to help a family member: Shortly before they both left office, Bill Clinton pardoned his brother and Donald Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
“As sympathetic as Hunter Biden’s circumstances might be, a pardon from Joe Biden would still be an abuse of the clemency power,” said Jeffrey Crouch, a leading expert on pardons who teaches at American University. “Presidents should not use clemency to help out their friends, family and allies in order to further their own personal interest.”
It’s crappy. It’s disgusting. It’s shameful.
“… I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
Saying the same kind of thing Trump says is really not a good look.
Not that it’ll affect how the Democratic base votes. I saw a YouTube clip of a CNN bit on the topic, and nearly all the comments—at least those from apparent Democrats—were approving.
It really does seem to me that powerful men are saying to themselves “Well, Trump got back in, so since there are no consequences for blatant favouritism I might as well do the same things he has been doing.”
Let’s face it, failing to imprison Trump during the four years he wasn’t in power shows that the Democrats weren’t genuinely angry at his behaviour, just jealous that they hadn’t done the same.
Politically speaking, for Biden to terminate what would have been an ongoing circus involving his son was for the best. The optics of pardoning a wayward son during the Thanksgiving holiday is also well timed. And heaven forfend that politicians, let alone fathers, change their minds about forgiveness.
Why on earth should Biden continue to pretend that there is the rule of law in America to the detriment of his family? People saying that this somehow validates Trump are somehow missing he has already been validated all the way back into the White House. The American Republic is dead, it is simply observing the formal rites now.
Since it’s all pretty much down the tubes, I reckon Biden should pardon all of the January 6 mob.
Trump’ s head would explode.