Summary
President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, reversing his prior stance against using executive clemency.
The pardon covers Hunter’s federal gun conviction and tax evasion guilty plea, sparking political controversy.
Biden cited political attacks and a “miscarriage of justice” as reasons for his decision, emphasizing his son’s recovery from addiction and the targeting of his family.
Critics argue the move undermines the judicial process, while supporters view it as within Biden’s constitutional powers.
This decision shields Hunter from potential prison time as Biden nears the end of his presidency.
The prior president pardoned a family member who was blackmailing and raping people, then appointed the same criminal to be ambassador to France. I don’t give a fuck what President Biden does now. We’re a country of criminals and oligarchs now.
… it’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club…
“This guy keeps punching me in the face but I think punching is morally wrong so I’ll just let him break my nose.”
This is exactly what they say about you too justify what they’re doing.
It’s amazing how quickly all the pride in our founding, American values, principles, etc are just discarded the moment one team loses an election.
Principles don’t win in America anymore. We just proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt a month ago.
It’s incredibly sad to see Democrats embrace hypocrisy with pride regarding a simple and obvious issue like this.
Trump will have a field day pardoning Jan 6 criminals with this additional political cover from Biden.
He was going to do those J6 pardons anyways, don’t kid yourself. He didn’t need “additional cover”.
Like he needed that cover. Remember how he pardoned war criminals in his last days back in 2020?
First part is true. It is sad and even a pretty respectable president has taken a fuck it attitude toward nepotism. Second part of your statement is silly though. Trump is shameless criminal, no amount of “cover” is needed - he was going to pardon those traitors regardless.
If democracy ever re-emerges in some other time or place, hopefully they won’t give this power to presidents. It’s ridiculous and heavily abused throughout history.
I love when people use Trump as a litmus test for good behavior and how openly hypocrisy is displayed like a badge of honor.
Go ahead and ride your high horse on that moral high road, just don’t trip over all the corpses.
Critics argue the move undermines the judicial process, …
Oh shut the fuck up.
Why did Biden say he had full faith in the judicial process this entire year until now then?
The votes came in. The country chose corruption and “fuck it” politics. At this point Joe just wants to protect himself / family from the coming retribution administration.
This is yet another example of Biden just not doing things sufficiently enough. He must issue a preemptive umbrella pardon for himself, as Trump’s DOJ, FBI, and CIA will go after him
I agree, he should push the limit of what’s possible to force the Supreme Court to rule on the actions, call their bluff, lay bare the hypocrisy officially for all the world to see.
Exactly. By not testing the supreme court, he is seen as being complicit in the manipulation of the system that Trump plans to implement and he might fall victim of it himself. The chances that Biden dies of old age during a lengthy court case or in jail, unfortunately, are non-zero.
In any case, Dem’s lack of imagination is just astounding
I’ve always found it absurd that presidents possess the authority to grant pardons. It trivializes our judicial system and undermines its integrity. This power should not be vested in the presidency.
It’s supposed to be a check on the judicial. Are you suggesting it should be vested elsewhere or just not at all? I wouldn’t remove any checks on this court personally
How does this check work?
I mean if you’re president is an unethical convict, like the next one, it obviously doesn’t work as intended.
The judiciary should be entirely separated from the political as per the trias politica.
Honestly, I think it’s more of a practical matter. Even if they didn’t have explicit pardon power, whoever’s in charge of the executive has effective pardon powers by simply denying to carry out the orders of the court (see Jackson’s behavior which lead to the trail of tears).
At least by making it official it’s a lot more clear what’s going on, and maybe they had hoped this would lead to electoral consequences for those who abused it?
He said he wouldn’t but at this point Joe might as well YOLO idk anymore.
It would be cool if he went out in a blaze of glory that wasn’t self serving. Like legalizing weed, arming Ukraine, and just generally trying to fuck shit up for Trump before he gets in.
A blaze of glory would be utilizing his Supreme-Court-granted powers of presidential immunity and officially act to save, at bare minimum, the country.
