“Hunter Biden’s pardon is understandable – but it’s a mistake,” criticizes the American site Bloomberg. President Joe Biden had repeatedly repeated that he would not do so, but he went back on his word on Monday, December 2. Enough to provoke indignation among Republicans and unease even in the Democratic camp. “No reasonable person looking at the facts in the Hunter cases can come to any conclusion other than this: He was singled out solely because he is my son,” the 82 president said. years in a press release on Sunday December 1st.
The Democrat used, a few weeks before Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House, his presidential power of pardon to absolve his son Hunter, 54, who was awaiting his sentence in cases of illegal detention of firearms and tax evasion. “It would take the superhuman emotional control of a stoic not to save a son from prison – and Joe Biden is no Marcus Aurelius. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter each pardoned their brothers. Donald Trump pardoned the father-in-law of his daughter”, Bloomberg would like to point out.
Joe Biden had however stated on several occasions that he would not use this constitutional prerogative for his youngest son. What made him change his mind? “The threat of a Trump administration focused on retaliation and his son’s imminent convictions prompted the president to abandon his promise not to get involved in Hunter Biden’s legal problems,” responds the American daily The New York Times which portrays the son as “a recovering drug addict”. Like a last gesture before dying politically, Joe Biden would have felt, according to an informed person, that “it was time to put an end to all of this”.
One thing is certain for the New York Times : the president’s decision “creates a conflict between two fundamental identities: the anguished father trying to protect his son and the president proud to defend his principles.” Joe Biden’s opponents did not fail to criticize his about-face. “For months, he and his White House spokespeople promised the American people that he would not pardon Hunter Biden,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton recalled Monday on Fox News. “We now know that his word is worthless,” he got annoyed.
“Avoid accountability”
For Republican James Comer, “the accusations Hunter faced were only the tip of the iceberg” and the president lied “from start to finish about the corrupt influence peddling activities of his family.” “It is regrettable that rather than recognizing their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid having to be held accountable,” insisted the influential elected official on .
The Democratic president has attracted criticism even in his own camp. The decision creates “a bad precedent that future presidents could abuse and will unfortunately tarnish his reputation,” said the Democratic governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, on X, saying however he understood the choice of Joe Biden “as a father”. Democratic elected official Glenn Ivey said for his part he had “mixed feelings” on the issue. Because even if Joe Biden wanted to protect his son from “unjust” prosecutions, this pardon “will be used against us when we fight against the abuses that come from the Trump administration,” he warned on CNN.
For its part, the American site Politico interprets Biden’s gesture as “a vote of no confidence in a justice system preparing for siege.” And the reporters aren’t being kind: “President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter almost seems like a diabolical prank on Washington — a Sunday night ambush designed to embarrass and shock […] Even unintentionally, grace is a kind of sabotage.”
Donald Trump should use pardon
If Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son is unpopular, its impact should remain minimal on the political level. Donald Trump “did not need an excuse” and has already been “abundantly clear since the presidential election that he sees his victory as a mandate to do what he wants”, said AFP Professor Nicholas Creel, professor at Georgia College and State University. The Republican has already suggested that upon his return to the White House on January 20, he would not hesitate to use his prerogatives to pardon all those convicted for the assault on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Donald Trump supporters then tried to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
The future president also made reference to it in a message on Sunday on his Truth Social platform: “Does the pardon granted by Joe to Hunter include the January 6 hostages, who have been imprisoned for years? What abuse and what error judicial!” During his first term, Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared, convicted of tax fraud. On Saturday, he announced that he had chosen this former real estate tycoon to become United States ambassador to France.