President Joe Biden insisted — over and over again — that he would not pardon his son, Hunter.
“Yes,” Biden responded when asked over the summer whether he would rule out pardoning Hunter.
And then there was this from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre last December: “I’ve been very clear; the president is not going to pardon his son.”
And then, on Sunday, before heading to Angola for the final foreign trip of his presidency, Biden did just that.
This was a completely selfish move to protect his son. As a father, I get that.
But, Biden isn’t just any father. He is the president of the United States. And when you put yourself forward to represent EVERYONE in the country, you lose certain privileges — among them the right to do anything and everything to protect your kid from criminal prosecution.
The reverberations of this incredibly short-sighted decisions will echo backward and forward.
Backward because it will taint Biden’s legacy. All the stuff he talked about respecting the justice system and not interfering in it — like Donald Trump? It’s VERY hard to take that seriously now.
If this pardon isn’t in the first paragraph of Biden’s eventual obituary, it’s in the second one.
Forward because now every single Republican will have a layup when it comes to defending Trump’s near-certain attempts to bend the Department of Justice (and the broader criminal system) to his will.
No, two wrongs don’t make a right in morality. But in politics, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. (Sorry for the cliches but they make the point.)
To be candid: I was literally gobsmacked when I heard about this pardon. It undermines the entire premise of Biden’s candidacy and presidency — that he would hold himself and everyone around him to a higher standard than Trump did and, in so doing, restore dignity to the White House.
This is the opposite of that.
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