Editorial: Biden's disgraceful pardon of his son is nothing less than Trumpian

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Dec 4, 2024

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In one fell swoop on Sunday, President Joe Biden erased whatever remaining claim he might have had in history to being a reformist president who restored the rule of law and political normalcy torn down by his predecessor. Biden’s blanket pardon for his son Hunter was such a self-dealing, corrupt and corrosive move that there’s no better adjective for it than: Trumpian.

Democrats poised to stand against President-elect Donald Trump’s virtually inevitable abuses of power in his coming term just lost any claim to the high ground, at least in matters involving presidential pardons.

Hunter Biden was convicted in June of three federal felonies related to his 2018 purchase and possession of a handgun he wasn’t supposed to have due to his crack cocaine addiction at the time and the fact that he lied on federal forms about that addiction during the gun-purchase background-check process.

The relatively minor allegations might not have resulted in criminal convictions and potential prison time had the defendant not been a controversial public figure. But as we said in an editorial at the time: “Public figures should be stringently held accountable for their crimes — perhaps even more stringently than private citizens — as a demonstration that no one is above the law in America.”

We also noted back then that Trump was irresponsibly tearing down America’s justice system with unfounded claims he was being politically targeted for prosecution. And regretfully, we gave Joe Biden (then a candidate for reelection) what turns out to be undeserved credit for putting duty above self-dealing by publicly rejecting any plans to pardon his son.

We called it an “illustration of the immense character gulf between these two candidates.” But as it turns out, there’s actually no gulf at all, at least on the topic of pardon abuse — and a willingness to undermine public trust in American justice.

Trump, in his first term, garnered plenty of richly justified criticism for pardoning political supporters, cronies, his daughter’s father-in-law and even a convicted war criminal.

Now, Biden has done him one better (or rather, worse) by not only pardoning his own son after piously and repeatedly vowing not to but by doing it with an announcement that was (yes) Trumpian in its toxic rhetorical assault on the validity of the court system.

“(H)unter was singled out only because he is my son,” Biden alleged in a statement. “... I believe in the justice system, but ... I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.” Biden thus tears down that process in a way that lends credence to Trump’s own poisonous attacks on American jurisprudence.

In that sense, it would have been preferable if Biden had just admitted up front that this was a matter of a father doing whatever he could to spare his son, public duty be damned. Instead, he justifies this self-serving move by blaming the justice system — just as Trump has done regarding his own felony convictions. Justice itself suffers when political leaders (especially a sitting president) undermine public trust in that system.

Biden’s “full and unconditional” pardon is extraordinarily sweeping, preemptively protecting his son from future federal charges for any crimes he might have committed over the past decade. The point is clear: Trump has made no secret of his plans to weaponize the Justice Department to go after his enemies, and the MAGA obsession with Hunter Biden would make him a top target, guilty or not.

That’s not right. But in anticipating Trump’s likely future debasement of justice by debasing it right now, President Biden further undermines the very system he has spent his presidency defending.

Trump has indicated he plans to grant pardons to those criminally convicted for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — anti-democracy thugs who Trump obscenely refers to as “patriots” and “hostages.” While Trump, being Trump, is likely to carry out that travesty regardless of what the current president does during his remaining time in office, Biden just gave him the cover of normalcy for his deranged pardon plans.

Way to go, Joe.

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