Snapshot: Joe Biden Pardoning His Son is Not the Real Outrage
The intense criticism is misguided when the next president has already proven that he will abuse his power with abandon to serve his own interests
Joe Biden is President of the United States. He is also a father who genuinely loves his son. On Sunday, he decided enough is enough and used his pardon power to protect him. “I believe in the justice system,” Biden said in a statement, “but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice."
The subsequent hand-wringing, the screaming and shouting, by both pundits and elected officials has been intense. The basic theme: How dare he exploit this power and give his son Hunter special treatment after he previously said he wouldn’t pardon him? The New York Times ran four stories about this decision on its opening page.
And it’s not just Republicans who have criticized Biden’s decision. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, for example, a Democrat, called the pardon “an improper use of power. It erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests.”
Really? The issue is that Biden granting his son clemency might convince someone like Donald Trump to bend justice to suit his interests? Trump has already pledged to pardon and release convicted Jan. 6 prisoners.
This would follow such self-serving pardons by Trump as Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared, who infamously spent two years in prison after being convicted for tax evasion. His crime included hiring a prostitute and recording the infidelity to target his brother-in-law who was cooperating with authorities against him. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who prosecuted the case at the time, called it “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he had ever seen.
Now in another flouting of even the semblance of basic decency—as illustrated by Trump’s nomination of sexual predators, felons and utterly inexperienced and reckless people for top positions—Trump has tapped the felonious elder Kushner as the next ambassador to France. As Rachel Maddow put it last night: “Honestly, maybe what President Biden should have done is not just pardon his son, but name him ambassador to France. Maybe then the response, the criticism, would be a little more muted.”
Yes, it’s worth reflecting on the many people deserving of pardons because they too are victims of an unjust system. Some of them are currently in prison awaiting execution. I hope some of the deserving will receive clemency before Biden leaves office.
But it’s maddening to hear all the outrage over Joe Biden breaking a norm by pardoning his son and providing him broad clemency. Did the critics not notice that the next president wants to install at the FBI Kash Patel, the Trump sycophant slathering over the opportunity to fulfill his boss’ desire for retribution, including targeting the “Biden crime family”? Many of those angry at Biden have failed to express similar fervor for the actions of a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, lead insurrectionist and depraved sociopath who has proven again and again that norms and the rule of law do not exist for him.
Democrats complaining about Biden's pardoning of his son tells me how deeply many are misjudging the danger and urgency of this moment. I hope Biden’s worries about raw politics and injustice lead him to do more in the next 48 days while he's still in power, including triggering FBI background checks of nominees that Trump has pledged to not properly vet.
May Joe Biden use the executive power still at his disposal to do everything he can to protect and defend the nation and our Constitution from the horror show that officially begins on Jan. 20.
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I'm glad the president did this. We're about to enter a very dangerous 4 years, where Trump is installing loyalists in key law enforcement agencies who will stop at nothing to investigate and try to prosecute people he perceives as enemies, members of Congress, top military leaders, and the media and journalists. The Republican Party has been obsessed with trying to to find some evidence of a crime in the Biden family since the day Joe Biden became the presumptive nominee in 2020, and Trump appointed the special counsel who investigated Hunter Biden for 5 years.
Bravo, Steve. The criticism is maddening, considering what’s in front of us.