President Joe Biden has pardoned his son Hunter Biden. After promising on national television not to pardon him. 

I’d a done the same.  For my sons of course, not for Hunter Biden.  I understand why Joe Biden did it.[1]  I don’t hold it against him.  Fathers among the “commentariat” are either going to skip the chance to be interviewed or say what I just said. 

That said, “it’s pretty bad.”[2] 

For one thing, there are a lot of people who are in prison now or who have been in prison for some other equivalent crime.  What relief do they get?  None.  Apparently, according to a person being interviewed on the PBS “News Hour” last night, President Joe Biden has an unusually thin record on granting pardons.  He’s not a naturally empathetic or merciful guy.  So the pardon for Hunter seems to me to be an even greater injustice than it appears at first blush. 

Then, there’s the nature of the pardon.  A while ago, Hunter had a plea deal with the Feds go south at the last minute.[3]  There were a couple of reasons for that.  One of them was the scope of what was covered by the plea deal.  Hunter’s lawyers claimed that the plea deal covered anything that he had ever done.  The Feds claimed that it covered only the gun and tax charges. 

Hunter Biden’s lawyers may have had the rights of it.  However, a firestorm had blown up because two Internal Revenue Service investigators swore under oath that there had been Department of Justice meddling with their investigation.  Republicans and the media jumped on these allegations with varying degrees of ferocity.  So, the Feds may have crawfished at the last moment.  No blanket plea deal for Hunter Biden. 

Now, in the lees of his Presidency,[4] Joe Biden has granted Hunter Biden a blanket pardon for anything he did or may have done in the last ten years.  Same as the plea deal he didn’t get before.  The sweeping nature of the pardon makes me wonder if there are serious things as yet unknown to the public.  If so, were they known to, but not investigated by, the Department of Justice under the Trump and Biden administrations? 

In any case, there is likely to be a rat hunt under the direction of whoever ends up as Attorney General in the Trump administration.  Just because they can’t prosecute Hunter Biden doesn’t mean that they can’t investigate.  And compel testimony.  And prosecute for perjury if it can be proved.  Trump is no more empathetic or merciful than is Joe Biden. 

[1] I got called to participate in an intervention.  Drugs.  We do the intervention and the person agrees to go into a treatment center; the person does a bunk along the way; we spend a lot of time looking for him/her/they before he/she/they finally surfaces.  Along the way, I call the police, asking if I can nark on the person, get him/her/they off the street.  The cop says, “If he/she/they have a problem with drugs, jail is the last place you want him/her/them: easier to get drugs there than on the street.”  NB: Language adapted to modern times. 

[2] One of my sons, who has not needed a pardon. 

[3] For a quick overview, see: Weiss special counsel investigation – Wikipedia 

[4] It must be a sad and bitter time for him.  Finally elected to the office for which he had always hungered, his policies inflicted hardship on low-income people; he suffered a humiliating defeat on national television in the debate with Doanld Trump; then got tossed overboard by a mutiny among the colleagues with whom he had spent his working life; then saw his hand-picked Vice President and hand-picked successor candidate go down in flames; then saw himself blamed by many Democrats for having caused the defeat.  In these circumstances, he may well have felt that he was owed SOMETHING by this rotten system.