Not your father’s pardon
But it’s Hunter Biden’s father’s extraordinary pardon.
Because I never took Joe Biden’s promises not to pardon Hunter seriously, I didn’t really follow how many people on the left were saying he was some George-Washington-like figure for making the vow. And so I didn’t realize how much backpedaling they were going to have to do when he made the nearly-inevitable pardon announcement.
Here’s one, for example, who has been left wide-eyed and slack-jawed:
BRUTAL: Brianna Keilar on CNN just made Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) watch a clip of himself insisting that Biden would never pardon Hunter. She then asked: "What does that feel like?"
They even kept him on-screen as the video played so we could watch his reaction. pic.twitter.com/uC6EM06Ikh
— Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) December 2, 2024
Joe’s pardon has several unusual characteristics that make it worse for the left than a simple lie. For those who peddled the “noble Joe” line, it’s hard to rationalize what Biden did – although they try. But for their following who bought the “noble” line, it’s disillusioning. There’s also the breadth of the pardon:
President Joe Biden’s grant of clemency on Sunday night — an extraordinary political act with extraordinary legal breadth — insulates his son from ever facing federal charges over any crimes he possibly could have committed over the past decade.
Experts on pardons said they could think of only one other person who has received a presidential pardon so sweeping in generations: Nixon, who was given a blanket pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974.
“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” said Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, a Justice Department position devoted to assisting the president on clemency issues.
“Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned,” Love added.
But Joe had to protect his son, his family, and himself from any possible charges connected with the family corruption, influence-peddling, FARA violations, perjury, and what-have-you. That’s why the pardon had to start in 2014, when Hunter began his “work” with Burisma. That’s also why the pardon had to be so broad.
And you may recall that Hunter Biden’s original plea deal that was offered by the Biden-friendly DOJ had included an unusually broad immunity grant:
First son Hunter Biden was set to receive sweeping immunity protection under the terms of a plea deal negotiated with federal prosecutors — only for the Justice Department to backtrack under questioning from a Delaware judge during a Wednesday hearing.
Special Assistant US Attorney Leo Wise and Hunter’s lawyer Christopher Clark both signed a probation-only agreement to allow the 53-year-old first son to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and enter a diversion program for a felony charge of possessing a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine, according to a copy of the document obtained by Politico.
The memo stated that prosecutors would also not seek to charge Hunter Biden for any federal crimes attached to his case, which included millions of dollars in missed tax payments between 2016 and 2019.
The deal only left open the possibility of “prosecution for any future conduct” by the president’s son — ensuring that possible violations of foreign lobbying laws and money laundering would be forever uncharged.
That article is from July of 2023. This is what the original deal from the DOJ was. Far from being out to get Hunter (which is what Joe now asserts: selective prosecution from a hostile DOJ), they were out to make sure Hunter didn’t serve a day in prison and to immunize him from future prosecutions. The only reason it didn’t work was that the judge noticed it and put the kibosh on it.
So, far from being some act of defiance against an anti-Hunter weaponized DOJ, Joe Biden’s pardon is merely achieving what the DOJ originally tried to achieve, only through another route.
Anyone who has followed Joe’s career could not have believed the talk about how noble and rule of law he is. I’m surprised any sentient being seemed to believe it, actually.
But they are bold and they are shameless, and they are accustomed to wiggling out of anything.
Here’s a list of crimes for which Hunter might have been indicted but which are now off the table – except, I suppose, if any of them are state prosecutions. I don’t see it happening. And Hunter’s freedom seems a small price to pay in exchange for getting rid of the Biden or the Harris presidency.
This is the key thing about the Hunter pardon: it pulls the rug from under the feet of the woke elites. For months, especially as it became clear that their political fortunes were waning under a second Trump surge, the Dems and their media backers pointed to Biden’s principled position on Hunter as proof that they still enjoyed moral superiority over Trump. Biden categorically ruled out a pardon. ‘I abide by the jury decision… I will not pardon him’, he said in June. …
Look, we don’t have to be heartless bastards about it. Many among us would opt to save a child from jail, even if it meant backtracking on all our fine moral grandstanding. But the problem is the Dems tied their political rectitude to Biden’s acceptance of the jury’s democratic deliberations. They used the Hunter case to morally distinguish themselves from the allegedly lawless bruisers of the Trump set. They swore, endlessly, that they would abide by the rules and restore normalcy to the Trump-rattled republic. And they didn’t. They ended up exploiting presidential power for personal favour to a degree Trump never did. Their claims to moral distinction lie in tatters. Their delusion of righteousness stands exposed as just that: a delusion. This is why this pardon matters.
To some people, yes. But most people weren’t paying such close attention, and a lot of people will just shrug and say any father would do the same.
This is a good discussion of the pardon. These guys are sharp and funny:
I think that if Biden had just said that he was doing it for Hunter, his son. Instead he framed it as political motivated from the right. How could it be political when Biden’s own Justice Dept did the prosecution
I can understand people agreeing with the decision to pardon Hunter, but it’s just almost impossible for me to believe that anyone could actually think that Joe Biden would put some abstract principle of justice above his own selfish interests.
I don’t know how many people who are expressing disappointment in the pardon decision actually believe it but, incredible as it seems, there seem to be some people who really thought that Joe would let Hunter go to jail. I guess these are the same people who thought that Joe hadn’t lost a step and that Kamala was a competent candidate. I think I would have more respect for someone who just admitted they were lying for political benefit than someone gullible enough to believe Joe when he swears he is telling the truth.
The more that we focus on Joe’s lies and broken promises, the less we will be focused upon the fine print within the pardon and the real reason for it. Joe, or of course whoever is actually running his show (BTW, it could very well be Hunter himself), just ensured that the entire Biden crime family will get off scot free. Not for nothing does the pardon go back to 2014 when Hunter first began to take on his bagman duties for the family. And that’s the real reason for the pardon – to absolve the entire Biden crime family.
Because I never took Joe Biden’s promises not to pardon Hunter seriously, I didn’t really follow how many people on the left were saying he was some George-Washington-like figure for making the vow. And so I didn’t realize how much backpedaling they were going to have to do when he made the nearly-inevitable pardon announcement.
Yes, same exactly. Glad someone else had the same experience.
So China Joe* just admitted his DOJ, headed by Merrick Garland, is politicized.
@rbj1
He only admitted that it was politicized against Hunter. All of the Trump charges are completely righteous as far as Joe is concerned.
The Democrats keep creating traps like Me Too to catch Trump and they keep catching themselves instead.
Not for nothing does the pardon go back to 2014 when Hunter first began to take on his bagman duties for the family. And that’s the real reason for the pardon – to absolve the entire Biden crime family.
==
No. He and Uncle James have been running grifts for > 25 years.
Maybe not all good for Hunter ‘n the rest…
The bombshell hidden detail in Biden’s Hunter pardon that means it could BACKFIRE and spark a catastrophe for the entire family, revealed by ALAN DERSHOWITZ
I hope that Trump is not magnanimous, and lets his AG go after them. I am tired of this s—- that we are better then them, that the Dem will do it to us. They have been and will continue to “do it to us”. Think what might happen if the Dems take the house back in 2028.
Well, well. Suddenly, no more ad hominem left-wing political attacks and rants from some of my friends on Facebook. Imagine that. Thank you Joe.
Re Dershowitz, I think he’s dreaming here: Hunter, if asked ANYTHING, will merely “pull a Comey” (as in…um, er, uh [scratches head] I, uh, don’t remember exactly…or some variations of it—I can’t remember…or…I have no recollection…).
And ye’ know what? It works!!
So what did they trade for money and diamonds, uranium concessions in arizona koltum in the congo i dont know what the romanians wanted
Overflights in the midwest it makes you think burisma hunters employer played the green energy in monaco but in practice they dealt in natural gas
and petroleum in places like the sudan thats why they hired cofer black fmr station chief there kolomoisky the ceo who has found himself on the wrong end because ukraine war was zelenskys boss leased poroshenko the last prime minister
Barry Meislin:
Agreed – and the thing about Hunter not remembering is that some of it would probably be real, because he was so loaded with drugs. That’s probably why he lost his laptop in the first place.
BUT…know ye’ well…that the Democrats would NEVER, EVER stoop to stealing an election…or two…or three…
There is a degree of uncuriosity of titanic dimension about all these issues
Just the whole privat bank affair which was proximate to burisma which involved 6 billion dollars! Much of it our tax dollars
that makes Hunter a potential key witness for years to come.
Problem here is that you don’t just get to question witnesses for no reason. There has to be some kind of official proceeding; he’s already been pardoned for anything Federal involving himself, so anything about him is already moot. He’d have to be a witness in something involving someone else. And if those people get these broad pardons too, then there’s nothing to grab hold of, so to speak, that isn’t already moot.
I don’t get it:
If an old white guy is allowed to lie and break the law, then why can’t a young Black women!?!?
“ Fani Full Release Ordered After Fulton DA Sat On RICO Records”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fani-full-release-ordered-after-fulton-da-sat-rico-records
Niketas Choniates:
Hunter could be called as a witness in Joe’s impeachment trial; the president’s pardon power does not extend to impeachments. And Joe could even be impeached after he leaves office, following the precedent of the second Trump impeachment.
There are, now no longer protected by the DoJ, others whose complicity in the grifting could be prosecuted, or at least investigated.
That would be an avenue to question Hunter.
It would be interesting to know how many dems actually believed Biden wouldn’t pardon Hunter. It’s one thing to shrug at an obvious lie and pretend to believe it, or ignore it. It’s another to believe it. Wonder what was wrong with their brains that they should believe it. And what they’re thinking now. Is it Joe’s first lie? Huh, was he lying all along? Never, “I was wrong to believe him.”
This is the second Democrat President, in my lifetime. who claimed he couldn’t or wouldn’t do something, and then just did it anyway. Which is not surprising. It seems that Laws and precedent are just inconvenient impediments, to the glory yet to be bestowed upon us mere mortals by our generous benefactors.
I do think there’s more to this than a CYA move. Maybe Trump gave Biden an offer he couldn’t refuse?
@bof: Joe could even be impeached after he leaves office, following the precedent of the second Trump impeachment.
The House voted to impeach Jan 13, when Trump was still President…
UP 22% – Bible Sales Surge across America!!
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2024/12/up-22-bible-sales-surge-across-america.html
”Problem here is that you don’t just get to question witnesses for no reason. There has to be some kind of official proceeding…”
Both the House and the Senate have the authority to investigate the federal government and members thereof. Because of pardons they may not be able to refer all of the wrongdoers for prosecution, but they can identify and document the crimes. Such actions are necessary to adjust budgets and pass reform legislation, both of which are duties of the Congress.
James Sisco (8:47 pm) said, “This is the second Democrat President, in my lifetime. who claimed he couldn’t or wouldn’t do something, and then just did it anyway.”
In the interest of political balance, I’ve got a Republican (albeit an establishment Republican through and through) for our readers’ earnest consideration . . .
“Read My Lips: No New Taxes!”
”’Read My Lips: No New Taxes!’”
George Bush did everything in his power to fulfill that promise, but the Congress was controlled by the Democrats, and they passed the tax increases with veto-proof majorities.
So…subpoena Hunter on anything and everything related to the Biden crime family.
He can’t take the Fifth anymore if he’s been pardoned for everything.
Everyone’s been asking why Joe released the pardon on Sunday.
This pundit has a novel idea.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/12/why_did_joe_release_the_pardon_on_sunday.html
In The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf says, “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends”. And so it is with this blanket pardon. Wiill Hunter be true to the words of his lawyer and live out his days seeking to do good? If so, bravo for him. Will he contrariwise simply return to form and continue his debauchery? None of us can foresee the repercussions of this unprecedented familial magnaminity on the part of Daddy Joe. Soon enough Biden pere will be dead and gone; there will be some who seek to lionize him, but I suspect even their praises will be muted or perhaps met with scorn and derision. History, if it is even remotely accurate, will not be kind to either of these Bidens, or to the Biden crime family syndicate in general, I suspect. Yet He Who sits on His throne above the circle of the Earth will judge, and judge with perfect righteousness.
The most likely explanation for The Pardon is that Joe Biden does what is best for himself and his family, no matter what the consequences for the country.
The second most likely explanation is that, like Joe’s instant endorsement of the worst candidate in history to run against Trump, this is a raised middle finger to the party that gave him power and riches, but then turned against him when he no longer served its purposes.
Joe, or more likely Jill, knows that whatever reticence Trump had about using the full power of the presidency to screw Democrats no longer exists. Trump will pardon every J6 defendant, even the violent few. He will unleash the DOJ on the mid-level bureaucrats who will squeal on their superiors. He will treat the Dems like they treated him.
Joe and Jill will be spared, out of Trump’s gratitude for Biden giving him this hunting license. Joe and Jill will revel in the the lamentations of the women he formerly associated with.
Steve (recovering/retired lawyer) – The Biden gravy train is at its last stop now. I don’t see how the family business can continue without a Biden as either a current or future holder of high government office. Regardless of what they would prefer, I can’t imagine that Hunter (or Jim for that matter) are really going to be sought after for “business” opportunities now.
So if Hunter is smart (questionable) – he actually will live out his days seeking to do good. This, while also living off the money made before his “conversion.” It’s his best choice. It may also be the only reasonable choice available to him. But to paraphrase Obama, you can can always count on a Biden to . . . well you know.
West TX Intermediate Crude
That whole comment sounded right to me! 🙂 Many of the “superiors” already know that mid-level bureaucrats have been gathering Immunity from Prosecution stuff, and some of these “superiors” have been whining for some time now. Some other “superiors” are probably not even a Trump Swamp Target, but are still whining—and maybe gathering evidence on their “superiors”. Heck, Obama could get caught up in the ‘Squeal’ stampede
Best way to drain a Govt Swamp is to look for mid-level bureaucrats anxious to “squeal” – won’t be hard, and I suspect that there is already an unnoticeable line.
Not your
father’sprevious Trump Administration….Here’s a very optimistic take (film buffs, take note) on “BRING IT ON” (Intramural Edition)…:
“Trump’s Wild Bunch Is Ready For Action”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trumps-wild-bunch-ready-action
Well, one can hope against hope…
(But why oh why does Book Seven of Harry Potter always seem to come to mind? To be sure, the formidable J.K. Rowling has been right up there on the ramparts…)
and they passed the tax increases with veto-proof majorities.
==
The Democratic caucus in Congress hasn’t had veto-proof majorities since 1978.
What truly is shocking and astonishing are the talking heads within the demokrat party propaganda organ, the MSM, expressing shock and dismay that joke Bidet, despite his assertions that he would not pardon Hunter, did in fact pardon him.
Did these talking heads actually believe joke Bidet when he made the promise not to pardon Hunter??
Did they actually think that there was zero chance of a pardon, because of joke Bidet’s promise?
How stupid can one be??
Any normal , clear thinking person could certainly not discount the possibility of a pardon regardless of what joke Bidet promised.
The leftist progressive ideologues are a first rate example of how easy it is to brain wash people into believing, with a religious zeal, anything and everything. One would think that after the Trump is a Russian spy story imploded, the talking heads of the MSM would be more introspective about what they readily, without question, believe.
I guess not; that would be akin to asking them to murder their family members.
The MSM is easily the most dangerous threat to the continued existence of our constitutional republic, the results of the recent election notwithstanding.
@JohnTyler:The leftist progressive ideologues are a first rate example of how easy it is to brain wash people into believing, with a religious zeal, anything and everything.
I don’t know why you’d assume they believed any of it any more than Karine Jean-Pierre does. They’re playing their role, which is to be the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. They believed in the sharpness and integrity of Joe Biden as much as Baghdad Bob believed Saddam Hussein was throwing the Americans back into the sea.
Now that’s it’s publicly proved all lies, they’re playing their role as aggrieved, to try to maintain an illusion that they weren’t the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. Later when the furor dies down they will simply rewrite the history of what happened.
@ Nick Choniates
You raise a good point, and of course I do not know with certainty if the MSM puppets really believe what they broadcast to their willing listeners.
The reason I think they are brainwashed is because several hard core MSM propagandists actually expressed real shock and surprise at joke Bidet’s decision to pardon his dope addict son.
A real propagandist would not express any shock or surprise; they would invent some bullshit to rationalize or justify why Bidet had to / was forced to pardon Hunter. They would have claimed, say, that Donald Trump forced Bidet’s decision.
The other reason I think they are brain washed is because they all socialize / hang out with like-thinking puppets (in Manhattan and DC primarily).
You can bet that none of these puppets would risk being ostracized from their cocktail-party circuit by actually airing (or believing) a viewpoint at variance from that espoused by their echo-chamber pals.
It’s analogous to organizations like the KKK or CPUSA or ANTIFA or NAZI party, etc. Members of those organizations adhere to the tenets of these groups and they just accept without question what their organization tells them to believe.
Members of groups do not have to think or question because it’s easier not to; so they don’t.
They just believe.
If the Grand Dragon of the KKK joined the NAACP, you can bet your house that KKK members would be absolutely shocked and kick him out of the KKK yesterday. They would not attempt to justify or rationalize the Grand Dragon’s decision (other than to claim he lost his marbles.).
Milton Friedman (the U of Chicago economist and Nobelist) had this to say about the NY “intellectual” community:
“In 1964–to the disgust and dismay of most of my academic friends–I served as an economic adviser to Barry Goldwater during his quest for the Presidency. That year also, I was a Visiting Professor at Columbia University. The two together gave me a rare entree into the New York intellectual community. I talked to and argued with groups from academia, from the media, from the financial community, from the foundation world, from you name it. I was appalled at what I found. There was an unbelievable degree of intellectual homogeneity, of acceptance of a standard set of views complete with cliche answers to every objection, of smug self-satisfaction at belonging to an in-group. The closest similar experience I have ever had was at Cambridge, England, and even that was a distant second.
The homogeneity and provincialism of the New York intellectual community made them pushovers in discussions about Goldwater’s views. They had cliche answers but only to their self-created straw-men. To exaggerate only slightly, they had never talked to anyone who really believed, and had thought deeply about, views drastically different from their own. As a result, when they heard real arguments instead of caricatures, they had no answers, only amazement that such views could be expressed by someone who had the external characteristics of being a member of the intellectual community, and that such views could be defended with apparent cogency. Never have I been more impressed with the advice I once received: “You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.” ”
Adhering to group-think allows “membership” into an anointed or unique “club;” so it provides social (and probably economic) benefits.
But it also requires that an individual allow himself to be brainwashed and turned into a puppet.
So yea, I think the MSM folks are indeed brainwashed.
Hunter is not going to devote himself to doing good. He will try to keep his name out of the newspapers, and as he grows older his need for hookers and blow won’t be as strong as it was in his earlier years.
Did anyone at CNN or MSNBC resist the “noble Joe” narrative? Maybe somebody didn’t actively promote the narrative, but did anybody question it or oppose it? Pointing out that Biden wasn’t a noble soul, that this was politics as usual, and that he was likely to go back on his promise would bring down the whole Democrat metanarrative and give the public a window into what Washington DC really is like. In the same way, the “noble Joe” narrative came out when Biden was forced to leave the race. It’s not dead yet, and when the memory of this pardon fades the media will drag it back again.
@JohnTyler:The reason I think they are brainwashed is because several hard core MSM propagandists actually expressed real shock and surprise at joke Bidet’s decision to pardon his dope addict son. A real propagandist would not express any shock or surprise…
Might that not be like thinking Robert Downey Jr. really believes himself to be Iron Man, because he appears to believe himself to be so while he is in the movie? If you’re seeing them on TV, might they not be performing “real shock and surprise”? The key to acting is sincerity. If you can fake that you’ve got it made.
(As for written “real shock and surprise” you’d have no way to know there was any genuine emotion at back of it.)
I notice that the description of the New York intellectual scene you quote is now 60 years old. 60 years ago, I grant you that perhaps public intellectuals actually believed what they said and were largely conformists who thought themselves free-thinkers–I wasn’t alive then and wouldn’t know.
But I believe that now, 60 years later, they are performance artists, playing a role.
Suppose Friedman in 1964, explaining what “intellectuals are like today”, gave you examples from 1904. You might wonder, has anything changed since then? 60 years was a long time ago… the NY intellectual aborning 60 years ago has grandchildren by now, and his children are probably the public intellectuals of today, so the thing you are presenting is about three generations removed from the present.
@Abraxas: It’s not dead yet, and when the memory of this pardon fades the media will drag it back again.
I think the legacy media will adopt whatever narrative absolves them and furthers whatever Democratic messaging in is play then. If the Dems have cast Biden out, then the legacy media will have been fooled by him And Now It Can Be Told. If the Dems keep Biden in good standing, then the legacy media will either blame Trump or just leave out the events that contradict the narrative that Biden was acting from high principles: they’ll edit out the repeated promises up to a month ago and represent that there was somehow a changed, Trump-caused situation that prompted the pardon. You can see them trying these out right now.
@Niketas Choniates
You ask “Suppose Friedman in 1964, explaining what “intellectuals are like today”, gave you examples from 1904. You might wonder, has anything changed since then? 60 years was a long time ago… the child born 60 years ago has grandchildren by now.”
Well, it’s another country, but G K Chesterton noticed the same thing in England in 1904. IMO, the congenital progressive is with us always.
but of course this is not about a father’s love, it’s about bribery and perhaps treason, re foreign powers, who found an in to the first family,