President Joe Biden’s unexpected pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, has sparked a wave of controversy among legal and political commentators. Some perceive it as a glaring disrespect towards the Justice Department, and others dismiss it as nothing more than political spectacle. Following an extensive 11-year pardon, President Biden announced on a Sunday that he believed his son, charged and guilty of three federal firearms offenses for deceptive applications, and admitting to federal tax evasion charges this year, was a victim of political witch-hunt. This presidential move has since stirred public doubt concerning both the fairness of the justice system and the possible ulterior motives behind such decision by the president.
The pardon signifies an ‘admission of the justice department’s involvement in partisan legal warfare and the misuse of criminal justice’, according to Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, whose comments were reported by the Washington Examiner. Dershowitz perceives the pardon as a censure towards Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel David Weiss, Garland’s appointee amidst Republican pressure in 2023 to investigate Hunter Biden over foreign business dealings thought to unfairly favor the senior Biden.
Dershowitz asserts that the pardon serves as reproach towards not just Garland and Weiss, but the entire system. Dershowitz, who has previously defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, seemingly implies this move by Biden was self-serving and undermined the system. Another voice chatting a similar discourse is the senior counsel at the conservative Article III Project, Will Chamberlain, who typified Biden’s pardon and related criticisms as a ‘indictment of Garland’.
Chamberlain underscored that Garland, having appointed Weiss, would have given the green light to major investigative steps. Hence, according to him, Biden criticizing the prosecution cannot be deemed as political without implicitly criticizing Garland. The Washington Post op-ed’s editorial board portrayed Biden’s decision as being within his undeniable legal authority, but also suggested it besmirched the Department of Justice under Garland.
The publication implied that the pardon encouraged President-elect Donald Trump to find similarities between the pardoning of Hunter Biden and any potential actions he might take against the impartial administration of justice. Interestingly, Garland has maintained public silence since Hunter’s pardon on that fateful Sunday. His newest comments on pardons were made in August, in response to queries on Trump’s potential plans to pardon defendants from the infamous Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Garland had remarked, in relation to Trump’s potential pardoning of defendants from the riot, that ‘pardons are a different matter’ and declined to further comment. As it appears, Garland’s opinions of presidential pardons remains a mystery. As Biden pardoned his son, Garland maintained his silence hitherto.
Andy McCarthy, an ex-federal prosecutor, was more doubtful about the actual correctness of Biden’s critiques of Garland’s Department of Justice and referred to the president’s comments as mere showmanship. ‘Biden is aware that his statements about his son’s case are baseless. Indeed, Hunter received preferential treatment as opposed to being singled out,’ opined McCarthy.
This is simply politics and nothing is genuine, according to McCarthy. He furthered by stating that ‘Weiss failed to execute a substantial inquiry’ and hinted that ‘Garland attempted to suppress Hunter’s case’, a move that unfortunately ended with disgrace when a predetermined plea deal exploded before a federal judge in Delaware mid-2023.
In President Biden’s declaration, he accused Congress Republicans of prompting an investigation into his son and declared ‘No rational individual who examines the evidence relating to Hunter’s cases could come to any other conclusion other than Hunter was singled out purely because he is my son, and that is unjust.’ Yet, Weiss’s chief prosecutor, Leo Wise, strongly rejected the president’s claim.
In a court filing on Tuesday, Wise declared that no court has agreed when the ‘defendant falsely claimed that the charges were the result of some improperly skewed motive.’ McCarthy also observed that the pardon was always a safety net that Biden had if all else failed and that Weiss’s role as special counsel was just a charade to ‘pretend’ Hunter Biden’s prosecution was handled by an ‘independent’ attorney.
However, ‘Weiss is far from independent, he is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware,’ McCarthy argued. He further added, ‘This implies that if Biden truly sensed that Weiss mishandled his powers, he could immediately dismiss him — U.S. attorneys operate at the president’s pleasure.’ Therefore, McCarthy highlights the silliness of the entire situation.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, reminiscent of McCarthy’s viewpoint, suggested that Hunter Biden largely evaded any implications only because he ‘flaunted his status as a shielded person among the Washington elite. He is one amongst the untouchable of Washington.’ He also agreed with the assertion that to justify this abusive pardon, the president is now attacking his own Justice Department for being politically driven and embroiled in legal warfare.
While no allegations of influence-peddling investigated by the House Oversight Committee were noted in the indictments against Hunter, Republicans alleged that Biden’s family, through operations managed by his son, had exploited their influence to accumulate more than $20 million since the end of Biden’s vice presidency in 2015. This has left many wondering what Republicans could or will do in the upcoming 119th Congress to further investigate if the sitting president benefited from his son’s alleged influence peddling.
Hunter Biden can no longer face prosecution for any presumed actions since around 2014, due to the pardon. This, however, means he could be summoned to swear under oath during upcoming congressional inquiries or court appearances. Thus, the pardon has potentially paved the path for more rather than less scrutiny.
Overall, the pardon appears as a shameful admission of injustice and illustrates the potentially self-serving machinations of powerful elite. While the original intent might have been self-protection, it inevitably drew intense public scrutiny and perhaps further damaged the credibility of the Biden administration.