Biden's Pardon of His Son

 As the AP succinctly put it in its headline, "Biden pardons his son Hunter despite previous pledges not to." For some background:

    Hunter Biden was convicted in June in Delaware federal court of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

    He had been set to stand trial in September in the California case accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges in a surprise move hours after jury selection was set to begin.

Nevertheless, "[i]n June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, 'I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.'"  But, as we all know, promises made by a politician are only valid as long as they are convenient to that politician. 

    In this case, the article reports:

    ... The move on Sunday night comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges, ....

* * *

    In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said, “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.”

And there we have the two main themes advanced by the leftist media: that the pardons were motivated by Hunter's gun and tax evasion charges, and that the charges were the result of political corruption within the Department of Justice.

    In fact, the propagandists at the New York Times and CNN had jumped on the politicized FBI bandwagon, with CNN proclaiming that "President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter deepened an entanglement of politics and the rule of law that has tarnished faith in American justice and is almost certain to worsen in Donald Trump’s second term." The article goes on to helpfully explain, like a kind grandfather, how the investigations and charges against Hunter Biden may have some justification, but were unfair:

    There is some validity to the president’s claim in his Sunday statement that his son was “treated differently” because of who his father is. Charges relating to the illegal possession of a firearm while being addicted to a controlled substance and regarding a false statement on the matter are quite rare, for instance. And Republican congressional probes into the matter, which imploded over a lack of evidence, looked like naked attempts to damage the president. 

    “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,” Joe Biden 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.”

    His statement is extraordinary because Biden is now arguing something rather similar to Trump — that his own Justice Department has been unfairly politicized. Biden was referring to the way that the Hunter Biden case was handled by David Weiss, a Trump-appointed US attorney from Delaware who originally investigated the president’s son and was later appointed as a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

The sad part is that there were political considerations behind it since, as everyone knows, people like Hunter Biden are largely untouchable. Conversely no one in the main stream media would have been wringing their hands over the prosecution of a nobody for illegally procuring a gun or evading taxes. But the pressure building over the information on the Hunter laptop had built up so that something had to be done in order to maintain the appearance of an impartial legal system. So the DOJ picked the low hanging fruit and let the statute of limitations run on the more serious potential charges.

    It is telling that the article from CNN didn't delve into why supposed corruption is good reason to investigate and reform the FBI and DOJ. Rather, it lays the case that we should not trust any investigations under the Trump Administration because Trump and his loyalists will be using the FBI and DOJ to go after Trump's political enemies.

    And that brings me to the point that Biden's pardon of his son goes well beyond the gun and tax evasion charges which ostensibly underlay the pardon. As the AP article notes: "The president’s sweeping pardon covers not just the gun and tax offenses against the younger Biden, but also any other '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.'" Even CNN cannot ignore the import of the 2014 date: "It is significant, therefore, that Joe Biden’s pardon includes any activity by his son starting on January 1, 2014 — the year that Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company — while his father, who was then vice president, was deeply involved in US policy toward Kyiv." On this same point, the Daily Mail adds:

    This has led many to theorize that there is something lurking underneath the pardon which is meant to acquit Hunter Biden of charges that came to light in 2018.

    'Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma in 2014,' wrote conservative commentator Liz Wheeler. 'By pardoning Hunter for any crimes he “may have committed” from 2014-2024, Joe Biden is protecting his family’s criminal cartel. Wow.'

    She added that Biden is protecting his son from the possible new head of the FBI: 'This pardon ain’t about the gun charge. The Big Guy is protecting himself from Kash Patel.'

    Hunter referred to his father, Joe, as 'the big guy' in a 2017 email about a business deal that raked in millions for the Biden family and their cohorts.

    'Truly incredible that Joe Biden pardoned Hunter starting in 2014 — the year he was appointed a board member of Burisma,' wrote Greg Price. 'You can’t make it up.'

The article continues:

    A White House official denied the pardon had anything to do with Trump's announcement he will name Kash Patel to run the FBI and install other loyalists.

    'No – this is in response to what has already happened in this case, in which political pressure has resulted in a miscarriage of justice,' said the official.

    Hunter joined the board of Burisma in 2014 and was paid millions for his role in the company despite not having a background in the gas or energy industries.

    Multiple accusations stem from Hunter's behavior while on the board.

    In 2023, DailyMail.com exclusively revealed the younger Biden helped coordinate a plan with Democrat strategists to 'close down any cases' against the owner of allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas firm and 'gain intelligence' on the country's top prosecutor's office.

    The emails bolster claims by ex-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin that the First Son and his then-Vice President dad conspired to kill Shokin's criminal investigation of Burisma.

Well, that and Biden bragging about getting Shokin fired in exchange for the U.S. releasing $1 billion in aid to Ukraine.

    What we can expect once Trump takes office is that the FBI and DOJ will hold up and slow walk investigations into the Deep State, and what do proceed will be portrayed as corrupt and factional and, for that reason, not to be trusted or accepted.