There has been a lot of criticism of President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter, and the majority of it—including the severe criticism with partisan overtones—has valid points. Beyond this, there is no other justification for the pardon: He is a father, and what parent wouldn’t utilize whatever authority they had to assist their children in need?
I won’t act as though I wouldn’t have chosen to do whatever it takes to safeguard my child in a similar situation, even if it meant destroying my own legacy.
That’s what complicates criticism of Biden’s choice. This has a human component that is terrible in a lot of ways. It really does suit the criteria of Shakespearean, which is a term that is overused in today’s society yet is ideal for this occasion.
Biden must be in a lot of anguish over this, and his decision’s personal implications are obvious. Throughout his life, the president has had to make many concessions between his obligations as an elected person and his family. Furthermore, no matter how well-known you are or how influential you are in society, coworkers or, in the case of elected officials, constituents are never listed in the obituary listing those who survived you.
Family is the only thing mentioned in obituaries. And when a significant family member passes away, who are the people that stay by your side day and night during the grieving process—the coworker you used to joke about with or the family members who stay the day after the funeral, after everyone else has left? The truth is that, over time, the people who are there for you at the beginning and the end of your life are typically the same people: your family. I don’t intend to minimize nonfamily relationships.
Joe Biden still has a lot of authority to safeguard my son or daughter, and as a father and a person, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything in my ability.
In the end, Biden seems to regret that his political aspirations put his son in danger, both legally and politically. That is evident from his proclamation of pardon:
Only when a number of my congressional rivals encouraged them to disparage me and prevent my election did the charges in his cases become a reality. Then, a well-crafted plea agreement that the Department of Justice had approved fell apart in court, with several of my congressional rivals claiming responsibility for applying political pressure to the proceedings. Hunter’s cases would have been fairly and rationally resolved if the plea agreement had been upheld.
Given the facts of Hunter’s case, no sane person could conclude otherwise than that Hunter was singled out only because he is my son, which is incorrect.
Take note of the numerous allusions to my political rivals and the incorrect statement that Hunter was singled out just because he is my son.
However, Biden acknowledges in his remarks that Hunter did violate these laws. He merely thinks that the political attention caused his son to be handled more brutally.
The president is probably correct that it wasn’t until Biden emerged as the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate that the GOP began to take Hunter seriously politically. If Biden hadn’t ran for president in 2020, his son probably wouldn’t have been charged, and Congress probably wouldn’t have looked into him at all.
The fact that Biden is behaving as like he could not have predicted this is concerning. When the Bidens were debating whether or not to run for president in 2018, it was evident that many of their family members were experiencing difficulties. According to the transcripts of the Delaware trial of Hunter Biden this year, the Bidens were still dealing with a number of family problems following the passing of Beau Biden, who was reportedly the family’s pillar.
In retrospect, it’s astonishing that Joe and Jill Biden decided to run for president in the first place, considering the family’s difficulties at the time with addiction, loss, or both. At the time, there was a huge risk of drawing attention to family members who were still dealing with their loss. Nearly as a threat to Biden, the GOP had hinted that if Hunter ran, it would drag him through the mud.
In Shakespearean terms, this is the reason why the entire episode is so tragic. Even now, I believe I can see Biden’s sorrow. Since Beau’s passing, he has changed, and who among us wouldn’t be affected by that? But whether he ought to have ran in the first place is the question.
Was it right of him to put his nation, his party, and his family in this predicament?
In principle, he was putting the nation before himself and his family when he decided to run for president. When you assume the responsibilities of a civil servant, political appointee, or elected official—especially an elected official—you are doing just that.
The intelligence community does a variety of background checks to determine an individual’s level of susceptibility. In addition to financial debt and family, vices like drug addiction and sexual promiscuity can also play a significant role. In retrospect, it appears that Joe Biden’s weakness as president was significant when it came to his family.
I can’t claim to grasp the president’s thoughts about his son Hunter and how he reared him and Beau because I hope to never experience the anguish of losing a kid. He must have a lot of strange regrets and emotions. I wish we didn’t have to discuss this in public, but he decided to make his family the center of attention. He was not required to do this.
The question now is: To what extent has Biden caused harm in defending his son?
Permission slips are what the president does. Not exactly what Richard Nixon stated Although it’s not criminal, it’s near when the president does it. A precedent is established when a president does an action that has never been done before. And I can assure you that if one president attempts something and succeeds, another will do something similar.
Welcome to a new standard, then. The president has now reversed the conviction of his son by a jury of other Americans, not a kangaroo court. Additionally, he exonerated him of any allegations against him, including those that may be brought against him in the future for any actions he may have taken throughout the ten-year period from 2014—the year Hunter attempted to conduct business in Ukraine—until the present.Politico was informed by experts that the scope of the pardon was unprecedented, with the exception of Gerald Ford’s contentious pardon of Nixon following his resignation.
It will also establish a precedent. It is unclear if Donald Trump will issue pardons before he leaves office that are nearly the same as the one for Hunter Biden, but he would change the dates from June 15, 2015 (the day he rode the escalator) to January 20, 2029, his last day in office. In any case, the odds have undoubtedly increased.
More significantly, Biden has now used Trump’s language to explain what he perceives to be Hunter’s encounter with the legal system. If both parties agree that whoever is elected will politically persecute their rivals, what sort of precedent will we have set? It is a component of Biden’s justification for the pardon. And Trump will undoubtedly use it as justification for pardons in the future.
What is the public’s current perception of the legal system? Both the nation’s top Republican (Trump) and top Democrat (Biden) have asserted that politics is to blame for the system’s unfairness.
Tell me who is now in the lead on this matter. Now, if everyone is in agreement with the outcome, does it really matter who put us on this path? At this point, I’m tempted to add, “Welcome to Thunderdome,” since a Mad Max allusion seems appropriate at the moment, albeit a little too gloomy even for my cynical taste.
Biden made a grave error that will cause many people to reevaluate everything they believed to be true about him in public office.
In difficult situations, when the chips are down, character is exposed. Joe Biden had a choice between what was best for himself and his personal conscience and abiding by the oath he took as president. And he may have done what was best for his family, but he did not do what was in the best interest of the nation.
To the Democrats who are straining to defend Biden’s choice here, a word of caution. If you re a frustrated Democrat because you think Republicans spend too much time trying to defend every move and every appointment Trump makes because they fear punishment for stepping out of line, then don t behave the same way. I get the sense that many Democrats feel duty-bound to somehow defend Biden s decision here even if they can t defend it.
I get there s empathy for Hunter Biden s becoming collateral damage in a massive political fight. Some Democrats also fear their criticism of Biden will get weaponized by the right-wing media. Well, so what? Wrong is wrong; take your medicine now. Trying to wish this away or sweep this under the rug as a one-off move from a loving father is a mistake.
This will be a pardon that will reverberate down the road. If you believe it s bad for the country if Trump mixes his business and his family with governing, then it s bad when a Democratic president behaves even remotely similarly. This slope is very slippery, and it s why it s hard not to ask whether we are witnessing the Trumpification of Joe Biden. He let a personal grievance dictate a presidential decision.
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