7mo ago

Biden Issues a ‘Full and Unconditional Pardon’ of His Son Hunter Biden

www.nytimes.com

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?

115 comments

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.
- 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~~ mercy of Trump. Whatever Hunter was getting was never going to be justice either way.
  Edit: I Engrished.
  
  Fight fire with fire, if you keep going high the other party will realize it means they can go low and you'll never do anything about it.
- 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.
  
  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?
  
  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:
  It is his son. His last son. Of course any loving father will do whatever they can to protect their son.
  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.
  
  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.
- Yeah even the president isn't going to stand behind the American justice system.
- 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.
- Then pardon Vindman, Liz Cheney, and everyone else who didn't commit actual crimes that Trump will actually take revenge on too. Or just admit this is plain nepotism.
  I voted for Harris, but I'm also sick of watching Biden single-handedly prop up MAGA with his ridiculous bullshit. And we're not doing ourselves any favors by trying to justify this - the election's over, we can stop pretending we like this guy now. Replace the failed leaders, yell at them until they go into the private sector. Now is the best time.
  
  Well this is just plain nepotism. I don't think anyone is questioning that. Maga doesn't need any propping up, they won. They won by doing a lot more than nepotism and promising even more of it. It's what people want it seems.
  A grandpa at the end of his life doing something for his only son, how does that even matter.
- This doesn’t change that or do anything to prevent it
  It’s entirely unrelated
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
I think he's concerned Trumps DOJ is going to come after them. Still super shady. But that'd be my guess as to why he did it, beyond the whole, he's my kid thing.
- Should be illegal to pardon family members honestly. If there was ever an easy example of a conflict of interest, this is one.
  
  You mean like Ivanka's father-in-law who Trump pardoned and named ambassador to France?
  
  So what? Maybe it should be but it isn't. The Constitution places virtually no limitation on the Presidents ability to offer clemency and no one in the last 250 years or so has seen fit to amend the constitution to change that despite the fact that the Republicans have been abusing the power of the pardon since at least the Reagan years. Now you are complaining because a Democratic President has used it *appropriately *to pardon someone who was convicted in a politically motivated circus?
  
  You mean like how Trump is about to pardon himself?
  
  I'd say make it illegal to pardon people who committed crimes to protect you (Ollie North, half Trump's advisors) first.
ITT: people who ignored the persecution Hunter has faced and are judging this on only an extremely shallow level
- ITT a couple instances acting exactly how you'd expect those people to act.
- ITC: people who ignored the sheer levels of privilege on display.
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.
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.
- Old rich guy who has never had to face consequences for any action coming to a realization? Sure.
- Seems like nobody has faith in the American justice system.
  
  Legal system.
  Its not a justice system, its a legally system. Who has the money makes the legal.
Good, now do Snowden.
- Never gonna happen. Snowden did at least break some laws.
  I want him pardoned but no president ever will.
  
  a pardon requires an admission of guilt.
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.
- False. Hunter was charged and convicted of criminal acts that are generally unenforced for the rich and powerful. The fact that they are generally unenforced does nothing to offset the fact that his actions were ultimately criminal.
  Not being given a "get out of jail free" card when all your friends got one for doing the same thing =/= being singled out for your political affiliation.
  
  Selective enforcement is one of the justifications for jury nullification, so it seems that it should apply for pardons too.
  It took them 8 years to find something with Hunter to be charged with. It was maybe the biggest political witch hunt ever. If you conduct a witch hunt, you're going to find "witches". Is this really what conservatives are scratching at? Because I would love for them to look at the last 5 year of dispensary ID logs and compare them to FID forms.
  
  Found Ben Shapiro' lemmy account.
  But seriously this isn't a rich and powerful thing. Practically no one, from any background is given felony charges over what Hunter did.
Oh right, Republicans went after his family and he still picked Garland as his AG.
Hope he continues the trend. Id love a full send on dark brandon EOs
Sure wish anyfuckingbody with power cared about helping THE ACTUAL COUNTRY WHILE THERE'S STILL TIME
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.
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.
Pardon all Trump prosecutors.
- You can only pardon someone who was convicted of a crime. This was a topic with "general" Flynn, who Trump desperately wanted to prepardon so that they would stop digging into his obvious and blatant corrupt ties to foreign oligarchs. It will also probably be discussed again in relation to Tulsi and her ties to Russia.
  Edit: My bad, that was untrue as it turns out.
  
  You can only pardon someone who was convicted of a crime.
  I don't believe that's true. See the pardon of Richard Nixon, who was never even impeached, let alone charged. I believe there's some debate on the validity of such a pardon, but none (including Nixon's pardon) have been challenged in court.
It would have been nice if he could have used his presidential powers
to prevent the genocide...
- Or to change that stupid ATF form 4473 which basically requires anyone who smokes weed to either commit a felony by lying (checking the box for they don't use illegal drugs) or tell the truth (checking the box that they do) and being unable to purchase a firearm. Unfortunately the war on law abiding gun owners had to continue so on a few occasions their position continued to be that marijuana users should not be allowed to buy or own firearms.
  Hypocrisy+++++
  
  That question is required by HR 1025 ("The Brady Act"). To get rid of weed as a factor, there would either need to be a change to the form requirement, or weed to be made federally legal and thus not an illegal substance. The requirement is not an ATF determination.
  Joe Biden could theoretically pardon all people in violation of this, but I wouldn't hold my breath for a blanket universal pardon involving guns and weed together.
- Or anything he promised to do while in office
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 and Delaware 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?
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...
Trump committed treason on national television, Hunter was only ever charged because his dad was President of the party opposite of the Prosecutor.
If the former gets off scott free, so should the later.
Good
I don't blame Biden for doing this. The qons will try to exact some extra-legal revenge on Hunter if they can get him into prison over his hard drive, er, I mean, "laptop".
Tough on crime, except when it's his nepobaby.
- I think you miss the point. One person doing something bad does not make the bad actions of another suddenly better.
Biden lied about not pardoning his son shocker. The guy is a lying scumbag.
- Didn't biden admin pardon non-violent drug offenders?
  
  Yes for marijuana possession convictions specifically at a federal level, he felt he didn't have the authority to pardon State convictions.
  after he overturned all the federal convictions, he said:
  "Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the use or possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either”
  https://apnews.com/article/biden-marijuana-pardons-clemency-02abde991a05ff7dfa29bfc3c74e9d64

115 comments