As a father, I understand President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden. Biden faced congressional foes relentlessly attacking his son, hungry to avenge what they labeled “lawfare,” or political prosecutions, against President-elect Donald Trump.
Yes, all along Republicans aimed to use the Biden son’s legal woes to skewer the father. Their goal was to make President Biden look like a hypocrite for excusing his son from legal jeopardy while defending the many prosecutions of Trump.
That is all true.
It is also true that Biden is guilty of running for president while knowing his lone surviving son meant more to him than the oath to defend the nation’s laws, courts, and system of equal justice.
Please don’t say you won’t pardon your son if you don’t mean it. And really, don’t deny interest in issuing a pardon after your son has been convicted.
A desperate father knows a pardon from his presidential desk undermines faith in the nation’s justice system. Biden, the father, also knows it rips away at his legacy as a man who said he ran to defeat Trump in 2020 because of Trump’s ethical failings.
Biden said he had to run because he saw Trump excuse a 2017 rally involving white supremacists that resulted in a death. Biden framed the 2024 election as a “battle for the soul of this nation.”
Now Biden’s soul is lost in the fog of moral compromise over his son’s pardon.
Trump is headed back to the White House with a pledge to use the Justice Department as a tool for retribution. His nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, has vowed to target Trump’s political rivals.
That leads to reports that Biden may issue preemptive pardons for some identified as Trump’s political enemies, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Democrats, including Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, are sending distress signals.
“While as a father I certainly understand … Biden’s natural desire to help his son … this is a bad precedent that could be abused by later presidents,” said Polis. “Hunter brought the legal trouble he faced on himself … no one is above the law, not a president and not a president’s son.”
Biden is now caught in the hell of his own moral failure. He knows the consequences of this pardon go beyond rescuing a loved one. For all his good intentions, he is now involved in undermining the justice system.
Biden has handed his political rivals, Trump and congressional Republicans, all the ammunition they need to derail the justice system and escape accountability for major crimes, like the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, whose perpetrators Trump has promised to pardon.
The story of Hunter’s pardon leads me to despair because it plays directly into the lies and the conspiracy theories Trump spreads in which he is the supposed victim of lawfare.
Trump has been twice impeached, indicted for election interference and convicted by a jury of 34 felony counts in New York. Yet somehow, he remains a free man and his fans believe his claims of victimhood — in fact, he just won the presidency again.
Trump and his allies campaigned on claims that he and even his most violent supporters involved in January 6 are innocent victims of a twisted justice system.
Trump himself hinted at this, writing on Truth Social, “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages…? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”
During his first term, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner — his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law — who had been convicted of and served time for campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and witness tampering. Kushner’s crimes included hiring a prostitute to entrap his brother-in-law and sending a recording of the encounter to his own sister.
And last week, Trump announced Kushner as his nominee for U.S. ambassador to France, the same position once held by Benjamin Franklin.
The Biden pardon gives credence to every “whataboutism” — as in, what about Hunter Biden walking away from legal accountability for his crimes — as Trump and his loyalists dismantle the law and constitutional norms to assert power over the government.
American law does grant presidents sweeping pardon powers. Ideally, they are used to provide mercy for people caught in a nightmare of corrupt cops and prosecutors or bad laws.
It was not intended for relatives.
But both parties have tested the ethical limits of this authority:
- Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger for drug crimes and a close associate, financier Marc Rich, for tax evasion.
- Gerald Ford pardoned the man who made him a vice president, his predecessor, Richard Nixon.
- Jimmy Carter, a military veteran, pardoned hundreds of thousands of Vietnam War draft-dodgers.
- George W. Bush commuted the sentence of a man who served in his administration, Scooter Libby, convicted of perjury in leaking the identity of a CIA officer in an effort to discredit evidence that cast into question Bush’s stated rationale for the Iraq War.
- Barack Obama commuted the sentence of a soldier court-martialed for espionage — Chelsea Manning.
President-elect Trump’s history of pardons differs in that it centers on political loyalty to himself.
He pardoned men who campaigned for him — allies such as Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.
That is why Biden’s decision to pardon his son will not quickly pass into history as a tough call by a loving dad.
His act of mercy for his son sets a dangerous precedent — one that opened the door for the constitutional chaos we may yet see in Trump’s second term.
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News, a prize-winning civil rights historian, and author of the new book “New Prize for these Eyes: The Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement,” available now for preorder.
