Editors at National Review Online assess the impact of President Biden’s pardon of his problematic son.
The sun rising in the morning was less likely than Joe Biden’s failure to honor his promise not to pardon his son. No matter how indignantly the president and his staff repeated this vow while he campaigned for reelection — and then while Vice President Harris campaigned after Biden was supplanted as the Democratic nominee — it was always certain that, once the election was over, Hunter would be granted full clemency. Indeed, the question was put repeatedly because Biden’s “no pardon” guarantee insulted the public’s intelligence.
The inevitable came on Sunday night, at the end of a holiday weekend. Biden has largely faded into irrelevance since his party dumped him after his disastrous debate performance in late June. But, by then, a jury had already found Hunter guilty on felony gun charges in Delaware, and the president’s son was staring at a September trial on criminal tax charges that would implicate his father because they were based on the millions Hunter derived from the Biden family business of peddling Joe’s political influence. Consequently, the prospect of a self-interested presidential pardon remained a campaign issue, and Biden’s post-election betrayal of his commitment not to grant one was always going to be major news.
The president knew the pardon would be scandalous. There are signs that he tried to soften the blow to his legacy. Following Donald Trump’s decisive victory in the election, Biden’s Justice Department moved swiftly to dismiss the criminal cases it had brought against the president-elect. … Perhaps the public could be persuaded to look at the preordained Hunter pardon as part of a clemency package — an ending of both the Biden and Trump cases that would turn the national page from a deeply divisive era.
If this was the play, it’s not working.
Biden’s half-century political career is littered with mendacity, self-dealing, and crass calculations.
