When Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he would be pardoning his son, Hunter – who was facing sentencing in two federal criminal cases – he helped cement Donald Trump’s much-repeated argument that the American judicial system is rotten, politicized and in need of an overhaul.
It’s a stupid refrain, but there are some heavy issues with Biden’s choice to do this now. What are we to make of the hypocrisy of a president who promised he’d “never interfere in the dealings of the justice department”, and swore even up until six weeks ago that he would not pardon his son? Or the fact that he just delivered Trump and the Republican party the kind of ammunition they need to justify pardoning, say, the orchestrators of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol? More morally troubling is that there’s a million other worthy causes that Biden could be using his pardon powers for.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” Biden said in his official statement on the pardon. He also called Hunter’s conviction a “miscarriage of justice”.
Sure, there’s validity to Biden’s claims that Hunter was singled out because of who his father is: prosecutors rarely ever charge people for illegal gun possession while being addicted to a controlled substance unless there’s a violent crime involved, for instance, and many other people who are nicked on late tax charges are allowed to resolve things through the civil courts.
But political witch hunt or not, the optics of Biden letting his son cut in line are terrible when there are thousands of people languishing in federal prisons who deserve this consideration. From inmates sitting on federal death row charged with faulty evidence, to the Black and brown people serving long jail terms for drug offenses or non-violent crimes, the inequities in the US justice system and who it punishes or rewards are far too grave and well-documented for Biden to have thought this was the right move.
Trump has promised to accelerate mass deportations, to carry out a spree of executions including for drug offenses and is actively seeking to re-incarcerate thousands of people who were released into federal home confinement during the pandemic. Biden’s lack of foresight and judicial inaction on these issues becomes even more shameful in light of Hunter’s pardon.
Still, presidential pardons have always been something of a political lootbag for outgoing presidents – a gift for friends and family to be handed out before the party ends. Bill Clinton used his to clear his half-brother of old cocaine charges, while Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, for tax evasion among other charges.
But that’s just family. Let’s not forget that Trump also spent his first term doling out these pardons to his merry band of thieves and liars including Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. And it is that track record that makes the fallout from Biden’s pardon so frightening, because Trump has already begun hinting at the ways he plans to capitalize on the decision.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump wrote on Truth Social after the announcement. “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”
Meanwhile, Trump’s Republican buddies have already found ways to shoehorn this moment into a defense of Trump’s most egregious Senate picks. “Democrats can spare us the lectures about the rule of law when, say, President Trump nominates Pam Bondi and Kash Patel to clean up this corruption,” Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator, wrote on X.
More than anything, the Hunter pardon and its fallout are reflective of the sad and un-funny joke that has become US politics and governance. Next month, Trump will be the first convicted felon ever sworn in as president in American history, and he’s already lining up the get-out-of-jail-free cards for his criminal friends. The difference is that now, any time Trump is criticized for his use of pardon power, he will be able to argue that Biden used those same powers to protect his own son.
