President Biden Faces Criticism over Controversial Pardon of His Son Hunter

The Washington Post / Matt Viser, Perry Stein

17:17 JST, December 3, 2024

President Joe Biden faced mounting criticism Monday for his decision to issue a sweeping pardon of his son, with a significant number of Democrats expressing concern that it would undercut faith in the justice system and provide ammunition to President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to remake it.

In the hours after Biden’s announcement, several Democrats said that while they understood his decision on a personal level to protect his son Hunter – who has lost a baby sister and an adult brother, suffered from addiction and faced relentless scrutiny because of his father’s position – they also worried about the broader signal the pardon may send that the politically connected have rights not available to all Americans.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) called it “wrong,” adding that “a president’s family and allies shouldn’t get special treatment.” He added: “This was an improper use of power. It erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests.”

Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) wrote on social media that “such a sweeping pardon for a close family member sets an unfortunate precedent that undermines trust in the office of the president.” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vermont) called it “unwise,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado) said it was “a mistake” and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington) said it confirms a common belief by her constituents “that well-connected people are often gifted special treatment by a two-tier justice system.”

Biden, a president who has often said that “no one is above the law,” was effectively shielding his son from the consequences of a jury’s guilty verdict, some Democrats noted. A man who takes public pride in “my word as a Biden,” he was reversing his oft-stated commitment not to pardon his son.

Experts also noted that the pardon was unusually broad, covering any “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.” In other words, Hunter Biden cannot be prosecuted for any federal crime he may have committed over more than a decade.

Democrats’ concerns come against the backdrop of Trump’s direct promises to use the justice system to punish his perceived enemies and help his allies after he takes office on Jan. 20. His picks for attorney general, Pam Bondi, and for FBI director, Kash Patel, have urged retribution against Trump’s political adversaries and critics. Biden, in contrast, presents himself as a leader who embraces the norms of American democracy.

The controversy erupted after Biden signed a “full and unconditional” pardon Sunday evening for Hunter Biden, who was found guilty of gun-related charges in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax evasion in California.

Because the move came in the waning days of Biden’s presidency, he will face no electoral ramifications. But the sharp reaction of some Democrats signals a newfound willingness to challenge Biden’s decisions.

“As a father, I get it,” Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) wrote on social media Monday. “But as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it’s a setback.”

Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Arizona) also weighed in. “I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong,” Stanton said. “This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”

Biden appeared to anticipate the criticism in his announcement. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” he wrote in a statement. Many Democrats and experts say an ordinary citizen would not have been charged for crimes like Hunter Biden’s: Prosecutors rarely pursue minor gun offenses, and similar tax violations – Biden paid what he owed, albeit late – are generally handled with civil penalties.

Biden announced the pardon shortly before leaving on a trip to Africa, ignoring shouted questions about the pardon as he boarded Air Force One. His wife, first lady Jill Biden, did not hold back.

“Of course I support the pardon of my son,” Jill Biden said Monday, responding to a shouted question as she was unveiling the holiday decor at the White House.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who had repeatedly said that Biden would not pardon his son, declined to say whether the president discussed the decision with his son while they were on Nantucket for Thanksgiving. “He wrestled with it. It was not an easy decision to make,” Jean-Pierre said.

Some in Biden’s circle have worried that Trump would specifically target Hunter Biden once he enters the White House, but Jean-Pierre declined to say whether Biden would have issued the pardon had Vice President Kamala Harris won last month. “I’m not going to get into the election,” she said. “I can’t speak to hypotheticals.”

She added: “Two things can be true. The president does believe in the justice system and the Department of Justice. And he also believes that his son was singled out politically.”

In his rationale for the pardon, the president cited a plea agreement that his son reached with prosecutors in 2023, which then collapsed. Biden has said the deal fell apart due to political pressure – Republicans had complained loudly that Hunter Biden was getting off easy – but the judge who rejected it said she did so because its unusual structure did not pass legal muster.

Republicans quickly seized on the pardon Monday, criticizing Biden for protecting a family member and for going back on his promise not to. The pardon proves that it is Biden, not Trump, who is weaponizing the justice system, they said.

Trump, in a social media post, said that his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win should also receive pardons, calling the cases against them “an abuse and miscarriage of Justice.”

Trump has not specified who among the group of 1,500-plus people charged with crimes related to the Capitol assault might receive pardons after he enters the Oval Office, although his representatives have previously said he would weigh clemency for the rioters “on a case-by-case basis.” During the campaign, Trump did not rule out pardoning members of extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which spent years investigating Hunter Biden as part of an impeachment inquiry into the president, slammed Biden’s decision. “President Joe Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability,” Comer said. Comer’s investigation failed to turn up significant evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) on Monday morning also criticized the pardon, pointing to the president’s assurances that he would not issue one.

“Trust in our justice system has been almost irreparably damaged by the Bidens and their use and abuse of it,” Johnson wrote. “Real reform cannot begin soon enough!”

It is the risk of playing into such arguments that concerns the many Democrats who are uneasy with Biden’s decision. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, wrote on social media that while he understands the president’s desire to help his son, “this is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”

Biden was also defended by many Democrats. Former attorney general Eric Holder said the pardon was warranted because it was clear Hunter Biden would not have been prosecuted for such offenses if his father were not president.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) said Republicans were being hypocritical to proclaim their concern for the integrity of the justice system, since many of them attacked prosecutors who charged Trump with multiple felonies related to allegedly mishandling classified documents and seeking to overturn the 2020 election. Trump was convicted in May of falsifying records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film actress.

“If you defended the 34x felon, who committed sexual assault, stole national security documents, and tried running a coup on his country … you can sit out the Hunter Biden pardon discussion,” Swalwell wrote.

Hunter Biden and his attorneys filed motions to dismiss the gun and tax cases in the wake of the pardon, but federal prosecutors objected. While the pardon may provide Hunter Biden with “an act of mercy,” the prosecutors wrote, it should not negate the cases themselves.

“That does not mean the grand jury’s decision to charge him, based on a finding of probable cause, should be wiped away as if it never occurred,” they wrote. “It also does not mean that his charges should be wiped away because the defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improper motive.”

Federal regulations require special counsels like David Weiss, who handled the Hunter Biden prosecutions, to submit a report to the attorney general at the conclusion of their investigations. If Weiss does so, Attorney General Merrick Garland could decide to make it public.

Even before the pardon, some Democrats and progressives criticized Biden for not using his powers of clemency more often.

Biden’s administration had received more than 11,000 petitions for clemency through mid-October, according to statistics released by the Justice Department. He has granted 26 pardons, including the one for his son. Through last week, he had also granted commutations to 135 people.

Trump pardoned 144 people and commuted an additional 94 sentences, including to allies and others who had ties to him or his associates. Shortly before leaving office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, and he recently named him U.S. ambassador to France.

Hunter Biden’s pardon goes far beyond a typical pardon, providing amnesty for potential crimes that prosecutors have not alleged the president’s son committed, according to Margaret Love, the U.S. pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997. Rather than absolving his son of specific crimes, it covers all potential crimes over a period of nearly a decade.

Love said the closest precedent for such a broad pardon was when President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon, for any crimes he may have committed, though he had not been charged with any.

While scholars have debated whether Ford had the authority to preemptively pardon Nixon, prosecutors never challenged Ford’s action by moving to charge Nixon. In Hunter Biden’s case, there is no indication prosecutors had any intention to charge him for offenses other than in the cases he has already faced.