Pardon Me?

For the past six months, President Biden and his surrogates have repeatedly insisted that no pardon would be forthcoming for his son, Robert Hunter Biden. Time after time the president, his press secretary, their acolytes on the US news channels, and news anchors themselves, were adamant that there would be no act of clemency forthcoming and that to suggest such a thing was verging on heresy. This, however, has proven not to be the case.

The biggest clue that this was all a charade was the president’s failure to rule it out using his remarkably egotistical statement that he meant it ‘as a Biden,’ as though that was meant to mean something profound. Now, to mean something ‘as a Biden’ has a new definition: It’s not true. Of course, to Biden watchers, it never was. 

Those of us who have followed his career can attest to the fact that he was always disinclined to the truth and content to pass off other people’s words and ideas as his own. When he ran for the presidency in 1988 he was caught plagiarizing a speech by the leader of the UK Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, known un-lovingly and for good reason as the Welsh Windbag. This, however, was only part of his problem that year. He was likewise caught repeating word for word, a speech given by Robert Kennedy some 20 years earlier. He claimed to have gone to college on a full scholarship. He didn’t. He claimed to have finished in the top half of his class. He didn’t. And he claimed to have three degrees. He does not. Unsurprisingly, he crashed out of the Democratic Party Primary race that year.

Biden’s narrowing group of supporters will doubtless be pointing to the sins committed by Donald Trump and may even go as far as to highlight the pardons issued by previous presidents, including Bill Clinton, that have courted controversy. All of which is irrelevant for this case. No one is questioning the president’s legal capacity to issue pardons. Although it is remarkable that, having waged a revolutionary war to rid themselves of a constitutional monarch, Americans bestowed their new president with such authority. What is at issue here are two immediate factors: Firstly, President Biden’s steadfast and repeated insistence that he would not issue such a pardon, and secondly, the sweeping nature of the decree.

That the president pardoned his son should come as no surprise, despite the all too obvious conflict of interest involved. What is deeply disturbing is the blanket nature of the pardon, covering not only the two cases before the courts, to which he has pled guilty or been found guilty, but to any and all crimes he MAY have committed stretching back to 2011. It shouldn’t take the sharpest legal brain to leap to the obvious conclusion: What exactly is being addressed in this that is not yet in the public domain? What potential crime are the Biden family concerned could come to light in the years to come that they have now shielded Hunter from?

Intriguingly, the pardon that Biden has now received was similar to the deal that Hunter was offered by the DOJ back in the summer as part of a plea deal that was rejected by the presiding judge precisely because it was far too broad and shielded him from any further prosecution for unrelated incidents. This, of course, goes further, to shield Hunter Biden from any breaches of federal crimes dating back eleven years. Why eleven? It’s hardly a round number, or a figure that leaps out as being the obvious time period to apply to a pardon. Unless, of course, there is a hidden significance? The time frame covered by the pardon all but ensures that any wrongdoing will be impossible to address, especially when compounded by the statute of limitations which similarly constrains prosecution for acts committed in the past. The time frame also relates to the scope of an investigation being conducted by the House of Representatives into Hunter’s business dealings. Make no mistake, this is a concerted effort to shield him from any future findings of wrong-doing, and is, in itself, a tacit admission of wrong-doing on the part of the president’s son.

Hunter’s long struggle with addiction is now being used as a form of justification for his presidential pardon. To quote the Inbetweeners, ‘that’s awful, obviously, but not relevant.’ Hopefully my British understatement, dry wit, and sardonic sense of humor is coming through at this point? If not, let me be blunt. It’s a smokescreen being used to hide a far greater series of malfeasances.  It’s also a terrible insult to those who do suffer and who do not have a president as a father to grant them absolute immunity from prosecution.

The wording of the pardon is therefore significant. By going beyond the two crimes that Hunter was about to be sentenced for, the pardon acknowledges that more crimes were likely committed and would come to light. What these were, who else may have been involved, and the implications of these acts may, or may not now come to light. If they do, Hunter will remain absolved from any criminal liability due to the pardon. But will others be so lucky?

Which raises my final point. It’s only the first week in December. I had expected a presidential pardon to be forthcoming, but not until Biden’s final day in office. Issuing this pardon so soon after the election raises the question as to what will follow? Who else will be pardoned? The White House has announced that more pardons are forthcoming, but of who? 

Right now, Biden’s supporters are twisting themselves into pretzels in an effort to defend the indefensible, suggesting somehow that the facts had changed since Biden last insisted that he would not pardon his son. That will doubtless continue until the next opinion polls emerge that will likely show a collapse in support for the president. When that happens, expect his supporters to run for the hills.

For years we have been told that a certain politician was only seeking the presidency to shield himself and his family from legal jeopardy, that he was using the office for his own financial gain, that he intended to issue sweeping pardons to his children, and that he was, fundamentally, corrupt. It turns out that this was indeed the case, it’s just that the individual in question was not Donald Trump. It was, as it always was, Joe Biden. And that’s no malarkey.