President Biden’s hypocrisy on full display: Pardons his own son after making a point about ‘independent’ justice"
In a move that’s being hailed as a “full and unconditional” pardon, President Joe Biden has announced that he’s granting his son Hunter Biden a free pass for all federal charges related to his time between 2014-2024. Just 50 days before leaving office, Biden had previously declared that he wouldn’t be making the move, stating he’d abide by the jury’s decision. But now, it seems he was just playing a different tune.
TL;DR
President Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was facing up to 25 years in prison for lying on a federal form about his drug addiction. This comes after months of saying he wouldn’t make the move, and is being met with criticism from politicians and others who called him out on his earlier stance. A case of “my family is more important than I am” - how about keeping your promises for once?
I read over Biden’s statement, and it makes sense to me. Hunter was singled out for political purposes. It would seem weird if Biden didn’t issue the pardon.
Good, now do Snowden.
Despite what Biden may try and spin this as, this is not just about the (aggressively politicized and pursued) 4473 ‘unlawful user’ perjury charge - otherwise why include the years prior to that act?
President Joe Biden’s son is charged with lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days in Delaware
Because Biden pardoned him from 2014 to present, it also includes the known tax evasion and FARA illicit lobbying concerns.
The Justice Department on Tuesday [June 18th 2023] said the investigation into Hunter Biden was “ongoing” even as it announced terms of a plea agreement [for gun and tax charges]
DoJ felt that there was more to investigate even if the tax and gun charges were covered in a plea deal. Read: there’s something there regarding Hunter’s lobbying efforts - and from internal Burisma emails he knew about the law and FARA concerns.
In the same April 2014 email, Hunter Biden indicated that Burisma’s officials “need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers, and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board.”
Biden is right that most 4473 charges would never get this far - what he’s cynically not pointing out (from the bully pulpit, lame duck or not) is the context of why prosecutors drop gun charges in plea deals or pursue maximal charges at trial, or the wider criminal case against his son.
The simple truth is, the entire case against Hunter Biden was politically motivated from the start.
He paid the back taxes and the gun charges are normally laughed out of court.
This was always a Republican prosecutor wanting to make a name for themselves, and with Trump taking power, well, we all know how vindictive Trump is.
I don’t expect this pardon to matter much, Trump and the Republicans don’t care about law or tradition or reality. They care about power, and are less than 2 months away from it.
You’re missing my point, Biden did not give his failson a targeted pardon nor a blanket universal pardon for his whole lifetime. The gun charge stems from a crime in 2018. The tax charge is from as early as 2015. The illegal lobbying/FARA investigation stretches to at least 2014. Witch hunt investigation or not, it was sustained into federal charges and was going to trial, out of a California circuit court - not Texas or Alabama.
If this pardon is just about the gun charge, as Biden alleges, why extend it back beyond 2018 and into 2014 when the alleged FARA/lobbying crimes were committed? Or if he’s so concerned about his son’s future unjust prosecution under a Trump DoJ, why is Biden blithely consenting to handing over power to Trump after the Supreme Court gave him near unlimited executive power?
So glad Biden is so concerned about following the law that protecting vulnerable people with his newly granted immunity is something he would never consider doing.
Sure wish anyfuckingbody with power cared about helping THE ACTUAL COUNTRY WHILE THERE’S STILL TIME
It would have been nice if he could have used his presidential powers
to prevent the genocide…
Or anything he promised to do while in office
Oh right, Republicans went after his family and he still picked Garland as his AG.
Biden lied about not pardoning his son shocker. The guy is a lying scumbag.
Nice. Hopefully Biden keeps doing more good shit in his remaining few weeks while the MAGAt snowflakes are triggered and distracted by Hunter’s dick again.
Biden knows they will come after himself but he’s too old so they will slam the hammer on his son with the maximum force they can get out of it, this is a good way to thwart that political attack.
Also, someone should remind Trump that he handled firearms after he was convicted of a felony and was not prosecuted for that …
Though I don’t think the importance of that fact will dawn on Trump, he never felt rules applied to him.
Good decision. Trump and his gang promised all kinds of revenge. They don’t play by the rules. So it makes sense to do whatever for your last son.
If we’re going to start abusing presidential power preemptively, can we get some sort of executive protections for trans rights or waiving student loans? Things that’ll help someone other than the addict failson?
Trump would just cancel them all. Day one like he did last time.
Canceling student loans would be hard to undo though. If we’re shutting down the Department of education anyway… who’s keeping track?
I think the issue a lot of us have with this is less that he’s stooping to Trump’s level, and more that he’s only doing it to help his own family. Abusing the office of the president is apparently fine and good if its done on behalf of someone who’s name is Biden, but the rest of the planet can get fucked.
I mostly agree. This is abuse of Presidential power so it is hypocritical for liberals to deny that… But, at the same time, if I were in Biden’s situation I would likely do the same. And here is why:
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It is his son. His last son. Of course any loving father will do whatever they can to protect their son.
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Why should Democrats care what Republicans think? Democrats are getting curb stomped by fascists who give zero shit about the integrity of our institutions or abuse of political power. They truly don’t. People voted for a pedophile felon traitorous oligarch. If you agree to an honorable sparring match of fisty-cuffs and your opponent pulls out a glock and shoots you in the knees and the crowd cheers for the cheater, do you have any moral or pragmatic reason to keep playing by the rules? No.
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Is he though? Isn’t one of the purposes of presidential pardons to protect a person from unjust political persecution. If Republicans weren’t Trump’s party I would agree it’s nepotism, but it is Trump’s party who will be in power. Trump has vowed to seek revenge on his opponents. Joe Biden is too old to really be punished as much as the Republicans want him to be, but Hunter Biden has many years left. MAGA Republicans could punish him for their hate of his father for at least four years, if not the rest of his life. Isn’t that one of the purposes of a presidential pardon?
“Unjust political persecution” - in whose eyes? Trump pardoned a lot of his cronies (for a likely quid-pro-quo) that were involved in J6 - is that a good use of pardon powers?
A president’s or governor’s pardon is inherently anti-democratic and political. One person gets to decide if the Justice System is allowed to finish it’s work or not, and thus we avoid having to address the why that in/justice was done by the system in the first place. When Biden pardoned non-violent drug offenders, that was a good use of pardon to reincorporate people who had erred and give them a second chance in society - but it did nothing for those who will fall foul of those same laws still on the federal register. The same with every death penalty clemency - we solve the scenario without addressing the issue.
I mean… there’s another read on this whole thing, too: “huh, I guess everyone voted for nepotism and insider deals, so why the fuck not, especially in this context?”
Biden’s just giving the electorate a preview of what they voted for.
Agreed. If Hunter Biden’s issues hadn’t been politically weaponized so much, I doubt Biden would have done it, but the truth is, with Trump coming in to office and threatening retaliation, it makes sense to pardon him.
The crimes Hunter was charged with are rarely enforced and rarely involve jail time. The Republican’s made this a political circus that would have certainly had Hunter doing time. If it wasn’t for that, Joe would not have needed to pardon him.
Good decision. Trump and his gang promised all kinds of revenge. They don’t play by the rules. So it makes sense to do whatever for your last son.
I would hope those that oppose Trump do not just adopt all his behaviors.
I mean I fucking hate Biden’s guts but it literally makes no sense to leave his son at the victim of Trump. Whatever Hunter was getting was never going to be justice either way.
Didn’t the Justice Department originally decide not to pursue charges until Republicans threw a fit? Seems like it was already a politically motivated prosecution, so I have no issues with a political pardon.
This shows that none of the 2 parties believe that the democratic system in the USA works anymore.
Which means, it’s dead now.Biden winning in 2020 gave us hope that people were realizing that fascists are full of shit and that they lie about everything, but Trump winning last month has shattered any faith or hope I had left in our two party system. It is hard to believe in a system when people are relentlessly assaulted with right wing propaganda year after year and then ultimately vote for a convicted felon pedo traitorous oligarch who denies climate science.
Yes, it is. So the Democrats, and anyone else who wants to try and resurrect it, need to get off their asses and start fighting dirty to rebuild it. The Republicans have been fighting to tear it down for more than 40 years using endless dirty tricks. Time to fight fire with fire. We cannot save democracy with sternly worded letters.
It’s been dead for a little bit
If the republicans don’t like this, the democrats will happily support a supermajority legislature vote that starts limiting executive power.
…in 5, 4, 3, what? who cancelled the countdown? /s
didn’t we, i of course mean the people who showed up, vote for this very kind of behaviour in the last presidential election? what’s sauce for the goose…
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I think you miss the point. One person doing something bad does not make the bad actions of another suddenly better.
I’m not an American, and as such I don’t think it’s my thing to speak on so do not take this as an instructive comment, but I will reflect on it anyway. I believe that this was, on balance, a bad decision even if I understand it and can find good, honest reasons for Biden to do it. In the end, the POTUS has this power and is free to use it as the president wishes. I hope it will lead to something positive.
The fact that Trump has said that he might pardon Hunter and now is complaining about the fact that Biden did it himself shows once again how everything said by Donald is a convenient temporary truth. Even if this puts the light on Biden also being problematic with this behavior.
edit: a word
It’s a poison pill for pardons. Either they are essentially absolute and irreversible, or they aren’t and all of the ones Trump made and will make are up for debate. He can grumble all he wants but for Trump to call this pardon “such an abuse and miscarriage of justice” is absolutely laughable given the decade of insanity and illegal stuff coming out of his orange anus. The toilet photo of all the documents should have been enough to jail this man for life in a black site but I guess justice is a miscarriage after all.
Justice is the one abortion of which they approve.
