Legal and political analysts are characterizing President Biden’s stunning “full and unconditional pardon” of his son Hunter as an early holiday gift for President-elect Donald Trump.
“He’s essentially endorsing Trump’s long-held opinion that the Department of Justice is politicized and isn’t acting impartially,” longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams said of the move by Biden.
In absolving his son ahead of twin sentencings on separate gun and tax convictions later this month, the president argued that the Justice Department’s handling of the cases against Hunter Biden was politicized.
DID TRUMP PREDICT BIDEN PARDON OF HIS SON HUNTER?
President Biden, left, accompanied by his son Hunter Biden, leave a book store as they walk in downtown Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Biden said in a statement Sunday night that his son, who is a recovering addict, was “treated differently” because of who his father is.
“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,” the president said in the statement. “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
TRUMP STATEMENT ON BIDEN’S MOVE TO PARDON HIS SON
Biden, in his statement, appeared to be pointing to the way the case was handled by David Weiss. He is the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney from Delaware who originally investigated Hunter Biden and was later appointed as a special counsel during the Biden administration by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
While an impeachment inquiry by House Republicans that looked into the president and his son’s business relationships fizzled, Trump, during the presidential campaign, hinted at continuing to investigate the younger Biden in his second term in the White House.
However, Trump will not be able to undo the pardon when he takes office. Additionally, the pardon’s sweeping nature means the next Trump Justice Department would not be able to reopen the criminal probe against Hunter Biden.
However, Trump gains something arguably more valuable – political cover.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with the House GOP conference on Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Allison Robbert/Pool via AP, File)
Trump was heavily criticized during his first term for using pardons to protect political aides and allies – including longtime fixer Roger Stone and 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort – and relatives, including his daughter’s father-in-law, whom the president-elect named as his second term ambassador to France.
Biden’s pardon of his son now gives Trump a powerful rebuttal.
“Biden has endorsed this idea that the Department of Justice acts in a political way, and he’s thrown out long-held precedent when it comes to pardons,” Williams told Fox News. “He’s blowing up an institution and procedures, which is what Democrats have long criticized Trump for. They don’t have any moral authority to say that Trump is undermining institutions and changing long-held procedures. That’s what Joe Biden just did with this pardon.”
The president-elect will be under pressure as he takes office next month to pardon many of those convicted of crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aiming to upend congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory. Many of those convicted are still in prison.
HUNTER BIDEN SAYS HIS MISTAKES WERE EXPLOITED BY REPUBLICANS
Fox News legal editor Kerri Kupec Urbahn said that “Joe Biden has lowered the bar so much here in offering this pardon to Hunter Biden, that I think Donald Trump will be able to pardon a whole host of people including Jan. 6 [defendants].”
Trump, in a statement following Biden’s move, raised expectations that he should issue pardons for some of those Jan. 6 convicts.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump wrote in a social media post Sunday night. “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”
Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as FBI director, speaks during a Trump campaign rally on Oct. 13, 2024 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Biden’s pardon came 24 hours after Trump announced he would nominate loyalist Kash Patel as FBI director. Patel, a controversial pick, has long amplified Trump’s unproven claims the 2020 election was stolen and long vowed to clean house at the FBI.
The move by Biden may help Trump as he works to push the nomination of Patel and Pam Bondi – a former Florida attorney general and another Trump loyalist who the president-elect named as his second pick for attorney general – through the Senate.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a leading Trump ally in the Senate, argued in a social media post that “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.”
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The Hunter Biden pardon may convince Republican senators who may have serious reservations regarding the Patel and Bondi picks to now back Trump.
“I do think it makes it more likely that some of these more traditional Republican senators will be p****d off enough to help Trump confirm some of his more controversial nominees,” a Republican who works on Capitol Hill told Fox News, as he noted that “it’s the most sweeping pardon since Richard Nixon” a half a century ago.
