Democrats have been warning for months that Donald Trump, if re-elected, would bend the Justice Department to his political will. But the president’s allies were suddenly on the defensive when President Biden announced Sunday that he had granted his son Hunter a sweeping pardon for any crimes he may have committed over a decade.
After promising not to do so, Biden said he did so because he felt his Justice Department had treated his son unfairly. Its “raw politics” “infected” Hunter Biden’s prosecution on gun and tax evasion charges and “led to a miscarriage” of justice. ”
President Trump granted pardons to a series of political allies during his first term, and has long criticized the Justice Department as politicized and in need of an overhaul. He strongly criticized the decision, suggesting that it was a misuse of the term.
The pardon immediately adds to the debate already raging across the country over the judiciary and politics, and whether the two can be properly separated, especially in the coming months as President Trump takes office and begins his next administration. I lit a fire.
Outside political and legal experts say the episode is a perfect example of how Trump, who took office after fleeing multiple criminal charges against him, comes amid both a long list of political opponents and a short list of law enforcement opponents. He said the case clearly reflects the dangerous moment facing the country’s justice system. Candidates have vocally supported his plan for retribution.
Ahead of the pardon, Democrats were busy denouncing President Trump’s nominees as a threat to the intended firewall between politics and prosecutors. They were slamming his first attorney general nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, and his second attorney general nominee, former Florida Atty. General Pam Bondi and his nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, are all supporters willing to cross legal boundaries on Trump’s behalf.
After the pardon, some Democrats defended Biden’s decision, while others acknowledged it was a terrible, if not terrible, decision.
Former US attorney. General Eric H. Holder Jr., who served during the Obama administration, said that based on the facts of Hunter Biden’s case and the results of a years-long investigation into his actions, no U.S. attorney would indict Hunter Biden. He said the pardon was “justified.” ”
Holder said people should focus on Trump and Patel instead.
“Ask yourself a far more important question: Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s premier law enforcement investigation organization?” he wrote of X. “The obvious answer is: no way.”
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on CNN that the president has “legitimate concerns” about Trump forcing retaliation against political opponents, including Biden’s own family. Ta. He also said that Trump’s choice of Patel to head the FBI is a “bad omen” for how Trump intends to use the Justice Department to attack his opponents.
But Hunter Biden’s pardon does no favors to Democrats who oppose such retaliation, Ivey said.
“This kind of gives (President Trump) a basis to claim that both sides are doing the same thing,” he said. “This will be used against us as we fight abuses by the Trump administration.”
Bernadette Mailer, a constitutional law professor at Stanford University who has written extensively about the use of pardons, notes that leaders of the major U.S. political parties currently argue that the pardon system is politically biased. , called this “an alarming moment for American justice.” So much so that they had to use executive power to essentially reverse it.
This “suggests a widespread distrust of the system and the way the law is applied, and I think that’s very worrying,” Mailer said.
Mailer said the most concerning aspect of Biden’s son pardon is Biden’s explanation for it, which “seems to be consistent” with Trump’s own approach to pardons during the president’s first term. said.
At the time, President Trump said pardons were intended for “very political purposes, especially to criticize certain laws that he felt were wrong, to target certain types of wrongdoing that he felt should not be criminalized, or to target certain types of misconduct that he felt should not be criminalized, or to target certain types of misconduct that he felt should not be criminalized. He used the amnesty to “curate favors for those he felt were politically motivated.” allies,” Mailer said. She said Trump “made a point” that he “used” his pardon power “as a way to criticize the justice system.”
Now, she said, Biden has done much the same thing.
Miler said if Biden had simply cited President Trump’s stated intent of political retaliation against his enemies, or if he had simply granted the pardon without comment, his son’s pardon would have been based purely on “reality.” “decision” and could have been considered “more defensible.” .
But instead, he issued an adjacent statement that called into question the entire Justice Department, correctly reflecting “Trump’s claims that it is a truly biased system,” and that “Trump on politicized prosecutors… “It reflects what is being said,” Mailer said.
During his first term, President Trump pardoned various members of his campaign and administration, including for crimes related to his work. They included adviser Stephen K. Bannon, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He also pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
President Trump, who is in his second term, has promised to pardon many, if not all, of those charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, adding to Biden’s pardon on Sunday. In an accusatory post, he called the people “hostages.”
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax charges in Los Angeles and was convicted by a jury in Delaware of illegally purchasing a handgun. Republicans have long suggested that he also cheated in his dealings with foreign companies and sold his family’s influence for cash.
Mailer said the president’s rationale for pardoning his son was based on various federal charges brought against him, including for trying to steal the 2020 election and concealing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. said it supports claims that President Trump has made for years. It politicized the Justice Department while undermining Democrats’ counterclaim that these cases were the result of fair prosecutions by independent lawyers.
Biden’s statement “just makes it very difficult to turn around and say there is no bias in these other cases,” she said, adding that the special counsel, whom Trump has long criticized, It even calls into question its very nature.
Mark Geragos, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, expressed similar concerns about the special counsel in response to questions about pardons. He said Hunter Biden’s indictment should have been thrown out as well, after President Trump’s classified documents case was thrown out in part over the appointment of a special counsel.
He said Justice Department officials held off on indicting Hunter Biden before special counsel David Weiss decided otherwise, calling it “political.”
In a court filing Monday, Weiss opposed the dismissal of Hunter Biden’s case under the pardon, saying he was not unfairly targeted.
Jessica A. Levinson, director of Loyola Law School’s Civil Service Institute, said Biden’s pardon of his son provides additional political cover for President Trump to pardon his own allies in the future, saying, “Look, who knows? He said that there is a possibility that the government will be able to say, “We are struggling.” It also strengthens his argument that the Justice Department is politicized and needs an overhaul, and that it will allow him to say “even Joe Biden says there’s a problem,” she said. said.
But she said the impact a Biden pardon would have on Trump’s future actions should not be overestimated, noting that Trump has already politicized the Justice Department (including during his first term) to protect allies. He said that this was because he had made it clear that he would use his pardon authority to do so.
“I don’t think this has allowed President Trump to take any actions that he otherwise would not have taken,” Levinson said.
Mr. Levinson said Mr. Biden’s actions muddied the Democratic political message that Mr. Trump was a unique outlaw.・A comparison was made with the discovery of classified documents in former Vice President Pence’s home and office. — such a document at Mar-a-Lago.
The existence of documents in Biden’s and Pence’s possession allowed Trump to say, “Look, everyone’s doing it,” even if fundamental action on the documents they had was not possible. It was clearly different from Biden’s or Pence’s, Levinson said.
Mr. Biden’s pardon for his son similarly allows for headlines that put Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump on a level playing field in terms of the use of pardons, Levinson said — even if the pardons and the criminal justice system’s appropriateness. Even if the fundamental relationship with the function is completely different.
At a time when this country is so politically polarized, it’s likely that Americans will learn two very different truths based on which politicians and parties they trust. said Levinson.
“It’s very difficult, because moments like this require you to look at the headlines and the first paragraphs and really dig in and understand where the similarities are and where the differences are. And that’s something that’s very difficult to do in our lifetime,” she said. In a society that tends to have an us-versus-them situation. ”
Margaret Love, who served as the U.S. pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997, said Hunter Biden’s sweeping pardon is also unique in that it pre-emptively absolves him of unindicted crimes. That would give President Trump the potential to object if he wanted to question the limits of the president’s pardon power.
In that sense, she said, this could bring about positive change. This is because the personal pardon system has transformed in recent years into a chaotic process rather than the clear and orderly one that should be conducted under the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
“At the very least, I hope this is an opportunity to have a conversation about how the president works in our judicial system, how the pardon power works,” Love said. That conversation is overdue, she said.
Times staff writer Stacey Perman contributed to this report.
