Wallace DeWitt writes for the Federalist about the unique circumstances of the Hunter Biden pardon.
At last, Hunter Biden has his full and unconditional presidential pardon, covering all “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed” between the tender ages of 44 and 54. Freshly sober and exculpated, young master Biden is now at liberty to pursue his promising artistic career. I join the readership of The Federalist in well-wishing this walking, talking malum prohibitum.
There is no gainsaying that Hunter’s father, President Joe Biden, has for a change acted strictly within the confines of his constitutional authority. Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution gives the president plenary authority to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Like mercy, the quality of presidential pardons is not strained: They “droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/Upon the place beneath.”
Reasonable minds may disagree as to whether the Founding Fathers erred in creating such a broad pardon power. George Mason inveighed against it at the Virginia ratification convention in 1788. …
… James Madison, principal draftsman of the Constitution, responded that “there is one security in this case to which gentlemen may not have adverted,” that is, impeachment and removal in cases of abuse. I leave it to the reader (and to The Federalist’s outside libel counsel) to determine whether President Biden has in fact sheltered himself by pardoning crimes that he himself advised, thus shielding himself from both inquiry and detection, as both Mason and Madison wisely feared.
Legalities aside, a more interesting question is whether the pardon transgresses against propriety. This, too, is a matter with which serious ethical traditions have long struggled. …
… We Westerners are perturbed less by Hunter’s behavior than by the sense that President Biden has violated a public duty more sacred even than his obligations to kith and kin.
