President Biden pledged not to pardon his son. I wish he kept his word, because it is an abuse of presidential power. His son is bright attorney, and a graduate of Yale Law school. I have zero sympathy for Hunter Biden, as he can hire the best lawyers in the country to represent him.

By his own admission, Hunter Biden had been under federal investigation since December 2020. It can take years for prosecutors to decide there is sufficient evidence to obtain an indictment.

The proper course of someone who is wrongly convicted, is the appeals court, not presidential pardons. Millions of Americans will face jury trials and they will be reliant on the judge and their lawyer to explain the process and make decisions accordingly.

Obviously, Hunter Biden knew exactly the charges, and for years, he tried to avoid a trial through many pre-trial pleadings. Does this sound like someone we know?

Biden’s trial began on June 3, 2024, on charges of unlawfully possessing a gun as a drug user, lying on a federal form when he bought the gun, and making a false statement about information required to be collected by a federally licensed gun dealer. The charges stemmed from a gun purchased and possessed by Biden in October 2018. During the trial, three of Biden’s former partners testified regarding Biden’s drug usage and gun purchase. On June 11, 2024 Biden was found guilty on three felony charges for federal gun violations.

On December 7, 2023, Biden was indicted in California on nine tax charges, including three felony and six misdemeanor offenses. The indictment reads that “The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019.” Biden’s lawyer said that Biden had repaid his taxes in full prior to the indictment. On January 11, 2024, Biden pleaded not guilty to the tax charges. This was changed to a guilty plea in September 2024, and sentencing was set for December 16, 2024. On the Wikipedia website, it is noted that a former federal prosecutor suggested that the sentence would be likely less than 5 years.

Wikipedia, Hunter Biden

So, in June 2024, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.” So, candidate for president Biden believed in the system. It was his Department of Justice.

Then days before sentencing was to occur, Biden went on the attack. “The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said in his statement. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son.

Link: Biden pardons his son Hunter despite previous pledges not to

Remember, Hunter Biden had his chance to go on trial on tax evasion, and bring witnesses that could testify to his reasons to evade taxes, which would include his addiction to drugs and alcohol or an inability to pay taxes. And he could have always testified on his own behalf.

Instead, Hunter Biden plead guilty, and convinced the judge to delay sentencing to after the election. Hunter Biden was to be sentenced for the gun possession charges on December 12 and the tax evasion charges on December 16. Instead, President Biden issued a blanket pardon on December 1, making it impossible for any prosecutor to bring charges against Hunter Biden for the period, December 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.

It takes a lot of effort to convict someone who is wealthy and an attorney of law. Members of Congress can make referrals to the Department of Justice, but frequently the evidence is lacking to present to a grand jury.

I am glad Judge Scarsi rejected the several excuses for tax evasion, based on Biden guilty plea. “Upon pleading guilty to the charges in this case, Mr. Biden admitted that he engaged in tax evasion after this period of addiction by wrongfully deducting as business expenses items he knew were personal expenses, including luxury clothing, escort services, and his daughter’s law school tuition.” He adds, “And Mr. Biden admitted that he ‘had sufficient funds available to him to pay some or all of his outstanding taxes when they were due,’ but that he did not make payments toward his tax liabilities even “well after he had regained his sobriety,’ instead electing to “spen[d] large sums to maintain his lifestyle’ in 2020.”

Judge Scarsi then discredits President Biden’s claim that his son was unjustly singled out. “But two federal judges expressly rejected Mr. Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President.”

Finally, by pardoning Hunter Biden, he obviously is attacking the Special Prosecutor and Special Counsel as blatantly biased based on the facts seen by a reasonable person. Judge Scarsi’s opinion scoffs at this notion: “The President’s own attorney general and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges. In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people.”

The core principle that Biden violated is that no one is above the law. Guilt and innocence of the accused are for the courts to decide. Pardons should be used when there are extenuating circumstances to consider either the trial or sentence was unjust. There were no special circumstances surrounding Hunter Biden’s case to justify a presidential pardon.

Perhaps I am particularly disappointed because I felt very strongly that Joe Biden had made many right policy decisions in the course of his term. This pardon weakens the trust we place in our judges and juries. I suspect President-elect Trump will abuse the power of the pardon, to set free his friends in jail. He’s done it before, claiming that his friends were political targets. Joe Biden did no better.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Links:

Judge Issues Scathing Response to Hunter Biden Pardon: Read in Full