Don’t Stop With Hunter
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Don’t Stop With Hunter
by Andrew Egger
President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter wasn’t just a display of hypocrisy. It was also the latest in a string of decisions the president has made showing a bizarrely incoherent response to the reelection of Donald Trump.
During the presidential campaign, Biden and Kamala Harris didn’t hold back about the stakes of the election, correctly sounding the alarm over Trump’s malignant authoritarianism-in-waiting. Yet since Trump won, Biden has oscillated between acting as if norms can hold and as if the house may indeed be on fire.
The president has participated in transition activities to ensure a smooth handoff (as he should). And he also gave Trump a backslapping “welcome back” photo op at the White House.
Republicans leered—and some progressives fumed—that this pivot showed Biden hadn’t really believed all that stuff about the dangers Trump presented. Biden’s defenders argued that he was just trying to stick up for the battered norm of the peaceful transfer of power.
But the Hunter pardon suggests the president believes we are now firmly in a new, abnormal political reality.
The dizzying, unprecedented decision to pardon his son not only for the crimes of which he currently stands accused but for any and all federal crimes he may have committed over a decade of his out-of-control life was, as Sonny Bunch notes today , a betrayal of the case he had made to supporters. “The notion that institutions and values are worth defending is something Biden told us to believe,” writes Sonny. “And he dispensed with those stated values the second they proved inconvenient.” But the pardon also betrays a deep worry that Republicans wouldn’t stop coming after Biden’s family until they had extracted their pound of flesh—that we are past the point of saving the institutional legitimacy of our system of justice.
Biden is obviously correct that Team Trump is openly gearing up for vengeance, as Trump’s abortive attempt to install Matt Gaetz at DOJ and his ongoing attempt to replace Christopher Wray with Kash Patel at the FBI show. What remains to be seen is whether Biden’s protective actions against those forthcoming vengeances will extend beyond his own flesh and blood.
A few weeks ago, former Justice Department attorney Paul Rosenzweig wrote for us arguing Biden should issue preemptive pardons to protect those whom Trump had explicitly threatened over their opposition to his candidacy: People like former Rep. Liz Cheney, whom Trump repeatedly called treasonous for her participation in the House January 6th Committee, or Gen. Mark Milley, whom he suggested should be executed.
“There can be little doubt that Trump has an enemies list,” Rosenzweig wrote, “and the people on it are in danger—most likely legal, though I shudder to think of other possibilities.” Keep in mind that Rosenzweig was writing before Trump’s announcement of Patel, who recently wrote a book explicitly listing dozens of purported deep-state Trump enemies, including everyone from Hillary Clinton and Harris to Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein to former Trump aides who have since spoken out against him, like Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah.
Reading that list, it’s painfully clear that nothing unites the names but perceived enmity to the incoming president. One imagines a loyal lapdog like Patel wouldn’t hesitate to expand that list.
Maybe some of these folks wouldn’t accept preemptive pardons. It’s true that, in some people’s eyes, that could look like an admission of some sort of guilt. It’s certainly true that the right-wing infotainment system would howl that argument to the moon. But Team Trump’s rhetoric of retribution has been so naked and explicit that no reasonable person would find that sound and fury compelling. And it’s a little late for Biden to decide he doesn’t want to make any controversial pardons.
The point isn’t just to ensure that, say, Cheney won’t be convicted of a crime. The point is to shore up the likes of Cheney, Fiona Hill, and Wray—as much as possible—against oppressive, life-destroying investigations on the part of a weaponized federal executive.
Biden can’t protect all of America against Trump. But the people about whom Trump and his lackeys are already openly drooling and braying for revenge—those Biden could preemptively protect. Hunter can’t be the only one who could or should benefit from his use of this power. At least, in this case, the president would be affirming the principles he ran on, not jettisoning them.
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Biden should give a preemptory pardon to everyone on Kash Patel's enemies list.
Why stop there, why not try and give a preemptory pardon to everyone that voted dem in the last election?
it is something to see all my opinions about democrats proven true.
More and more democrats are saying the dem party needs a complete reboot to try and reach people. Of course you have many that feel condescension, name calling, talking at people, telling people they know what's best for them and demonizing everyone that does not vote dem is still the winning strategy.
Biden's pardon(s) pale in comparison to what Trump has done, and seems prepared to expand on.
Funny how many on the left use Trump as a moral compass. They can do whatever they want as long as they can rationalize it is not as bad as Trump.
He definitely should give one to Liz Cheney.
Not that it will work. trmp will do something underhanded so it enables Cash to go after the enemies
Cassidy Hutchinson definitely as well. I'm sure Trump and his lackeys are already thinking about how to make her life miserable.
I remember now. She blew the whistle on him about the goings on on Jan 6
It is amazing to see the 180 degree flip from people who just a few months ago supported the NY prosecution of Trump after the DA promised to "get Trump" and empowered his team to find something, anything they could charge him with before settling on a law no one had ever been convicted of before. They were fine with targeting him because "no one is above the law" and the conviction by friendly jury apparently justified a targeted political prosecution.
SO why the sudden flip? Why not support Republicans targeting Democrats the same way? Suddenly its " Waah!, Bad man Trump might treat us like we treated him!. That's not fair! Pardons for everyone!
Lucky for Democrats, hypocrisy isn't a fatal disease.
But judging by the last election it seems it can be fatal in politics.
How many people didn't come out to vote in the presidential election due to the apathy and failure of the candidates. I find it surprising that Trump continued to gain votes and this latest election garnered him more votes than his two previous runs, but not surprising that Harris lost 9 million voters that Biden got in 2020 when she stated quite clearly that (a) she was NOT Trump and (b) she couldn't think of a single thing she would do differently from Biden.