WASHINGTON: During the presidential campaign, Democrats largely warned that Donald Trump poses a threat to the rule of law, public trust in government, and even the truth itself.
Some party members and strategists said Monday that President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son undermined all of those reasons while providing Trump with political cover to pursue far-right goals that Democrats worry will harm the nation.
Hunter Biden will not be punished for his criminal convictions in two different cases—one involving tax evasion and the other involving weapons charges—thanks to the broad pardon.
In addition, Hunter is exempt from any federal violations he may have committed during the previous ten years thanks to the pardon that Biden had repeatedly promised he would never grant his son.
Americans may recognize a father’s instinctive desire to shield his son from a parent who has battled drug and alcohol addiction.
Are there any fathers you know who wouldn’t have followed suit? Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W-Va., who is retiring, told NBC News on Monday.
“To put it this way, if it were my son, I would also forgive him,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., also said to reporters.
However, Biden went beyond a father’s affection to defend the pardon, accusing federal prosecutors in a manner similar to that Trump has employed when asserting that he is the victim of partisan persecution.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the president said that Hunter had been unfairly and selectively punished. Biden stated that a miscarriage of justice resulted from the judicial drama being tainted by unfiltered politics.
He never once used Trump’s favorite term, “witch hunt!” However, it has the same connotation.
A senior law enforcement official described the White House’s strategy as absurd and pointed out that Biden made the decision to retain Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to carry out the continuing investigation into Hunter Biden soon after he took office in 2021.
According to Anthony Coley, a former spokesman for the Justice Department, they took a risk that didn’t work out as planned.
Biden and other Democratic leaders may lose some of the moral standing necessary to protest any future pardons that Trump offers after he spared his son from punishment.
Trump previously stated that he would “absolutely” think about pardoning all of the rioters who invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump might attempt to use the Biden pardon to lessen the consequences if he follows through.
According to Ty Cobb, a former special counsel in the Trump White House who has turned against the former president, Trump would use the Hunter Biden pardon as justification for whatever intentions he has for pardoning the Jan. 6 offenders. His fans will undoubtedly accept that as a rationale. That is a national disaster.
Trump’s claim that there is corruption in the legal system that must be eliminated is supported by the justification Biden offered for pardoning his son. Critics of the pardon said it aids Trump in his argument and may lead to the dismissal of some of the career lawyers attempting to uphold the law.
In fact, Biden’s pardon was cited by Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt to support the president-elect’s claims in a Monday night interview with Fox News.
She claimed that Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden is evidence that President Trump has fulfilled his signature campaign pledge to stop the weaponization of our legal system. He will fulfill his promise. He will eradicate the corruption.
“The unfortunate thing is that he [Biden] basically has legitimized these accusations against the Justice Department, and that is going to reverberate for the next four years,” Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis stated in an interview. That’s the issue.
The Justice Department is already viewed with a great deal of distrust by the incoming Trump team. The Justice Department is obviously in Trump’s crosshairs as part of the MAGA movement’s goal to destroy what supporters refer to as the “deep state,” which is made up of career government personnel.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s choice to lead the agency, has previously claimed that the prosecutors who brought charges against Trump belonged to a “deep state” that was determined to discredit him. Last year, she declared that the bad prosecutors will face legal action.
One of the most significant and potent organizations in the United States is the Justice Department. Through investigations, trials, and subpoenas, prosecutors have the power to completely upend a person’s life and deplete their savings. Former U.S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson warned in a 1940 speech that although prosecutors are generally one of the most positive forces in our society, they can also be among the worst when they operate with malice or other vile intentions.
Americans may become cynical about the rule of law if they start to doubt the Justice Department’s objectivity. Democrats contend that Trump’s constant accusations that he is a target of rogue prosecutors have contributed to a general mistrust of organizations such as the Justice Department.
Now, Biden is the one abusing the legal system by defending the pardon on the basis of what prosecutors believe to be the unfounded allegation that Hunter is being singled out for political purposes.
The notion that Hunter is the victim of selective prosecution has previously been rejected by a judge. “Hunter Biden fails to present a reasonable inference, let alone clear evidence, of discriminatory effect and discriminatory purpose,” stated U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who is presiding over the tax case, in an April ruling that rejected claims made by Hunter’s lawyers that he had been singled out.
When either Biden or Trump disparages federal prosecutors, public confidence in the government declines. According to the Pew Research Center, trust in governmental institutions has been declining in the United States since the 1960s.Just 22% of Americans reported in April that they believed the government will act morally most of the time. That percentage was 77% sixty years ago.
On Monday’s NBC News “Meet the Press Now,” Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., stated, “We need the American people to have confidence in important institutions like the Department of Justice.” And I believe that has been harmed by the events of the past 24 hours.
The pardon was denounced by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., a generally reliable Biden friend.
I simply believe that what he did was wrong. Peters, who is up for reelection in 2026, stated that it will only further undermine public trust in the Department of Justice and our legal system in general.
A fragment of Biden’s legacy is another casualty of the pardon. He has always taken great satisfaction in speaking the truth and offering what he refers to as his “word as a Biden.”
However, Biden fulfilled his pledge that he would not pardon his son. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also reiterated the now-false pledge, claiming that the president hadn’t lied while attempting to justify it on Monday.
He told reporters on Air Force One that he made this decision this past weekend after giving it some thought. He stated that although he believes in the legal system, he also thinks that the process was tainted by raw politics, which resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
According to Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, “the idea that Biden was selling — ‘I give you my word as a Biden’ — doesn’t hold up.” “So, in that case, there’s a further erosion of his legacy.”
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