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Ironically inveighing against the politicization of America’s justice system, lame duck U.S. president Joe Biden issued a pardon this weekend for his son, Hunter Biden.
The decision – which Biden announced on Sunday evening – reversed his previous position on the issue, which was reiterated on multiple occasions both before and after he declined to seek reelection. And before and after former U.S. president Donald Trump won back the White House last month.
“The president is not going to pardon his son,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last December.
Jean-Pierre reiterated this position on numerous occasions – including as recently as November 7 of this year. Biden himself also repeatedly vowed he would not pardon his son.
“I am not going to do anything,” he said back in June when his son was convicted on gun charges.
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Biden’s pardon applies to any crimes his son “has committed or may have committed” between January 1, 2014 and the present date (December 1, 2024). That includes the gun charges he was convicted of and federal tax crimes to which he pleaded guilty in September.
It would also apply to any of the acts Biden committed in his well-documented role as a family influence peddler.
“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 – and that is wrong,” Biden said in a statement announcing the decision.
“There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden continued. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
Biden curiously blamed political opponents for weaponizing a justice system he controls – a system he used repeatedly to cover his own misdeeds while targeting his political enemies.
“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” he said.
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden concluded.
What do you think? Should Biden have pardoned his son? Vote in our poll and post your thoughts in our always engaging comments section below…
Should Joe Biden have pardoned his son?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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24 comments
While I have less than zero respect or use for the Bidens, it is difficult for me to become incensed over this when Trumpy pardoned Ivanka’s crooked father-in-law before leaving office in his last term and very recently, appointed Charles Kushner as Ambassador To France.
Welcome to the Jew World Order
Nice display of antisemitism. I’ll bet you enjoy wearing your pointy topped white sheet.
Nice display of Joo worship there, Gracie.
I’m sorry! I should have called you a Nazi instead of a klan member. But perhaps you’re both.
Many Trump supporters are one or both or at least white supremacists. They are an important part of his coalition.
Oh! I see! You are a Nazi. Nice…
Not only should he pardon his son, but he should pardon everyone Trump and his minions have threatened. The criminals are in charge of the prison now and someone needs to rescue the guards because we sure can’t count on anything for the next four years except grift, corruption, and retribution against anyone who stood up to Trump.
????
We all knew this was coming. A surprise to no-one, except perhaps the timing. I thought it would be the last week or so of Biden’s presidency, but hey, this saves on the attorneys’ fees.
And yeah, Trump’s pardon of Ivanka’s father-in-law was unseemly, but at least he actually served some meaningful jail time before being pardoned. Hunter won’t see a single day.
Biden is throwing a big FU to his party as he goes out the door, intentionally timing it so it will have time to resonate before the end of his term. Who knows what else the old codger (really his delightful wife “Doctor Jill”) has planned. He issued the pardon as he was walking out to climb aboard AF 1 so that his staff and party hierarchy would have to deal with it.
There is an interesting school of thought that says congress can and should still investigate regardless of the inability to prosecute, neutering Democrats for years to come.
What do you want them to investigate? They have been investigating for four years and have nothing. The things Hunter was charged with are rarely prosecuted and even if they are, they rarely carry jail time. But Trump would have tried to get to Biden through Hunter. It’s how the mob works. If this were a normal administration, I would oppose this pardon, but we know what to expect from Trump. He told us over and over as did the person he wants to head the FBI. It’s all about revenge and power.
I would not oppose any pardons Biden wants to give. We are about to endure 4 years with a Justice Department that prosecutes the people on Trump’s enemies list.
Nothing?!? Biden pled guilty to nine charges of tax evasion with a net total due of around $1.9 million in taxes and interest. He was convicted of the firearms charges.
I’d really like to know exactly what he did for Burisma that netted him $6.5 million.
I’d really like to know what he did for Romanian President Klaus Iohannis that netted him $3 million.
I’d really like to know what he did for China in the name of State Energy HK Limited and CFEC that netted him more than $8 million.
I’d like to know why Novatus Holdings from Kazakhstan bought him a $150,000 car.
And I’d really like to know why Russia’s richest woman, Yelena Baturina, gave him $3 million.
Well, now that he has a blanket pardon spanning 11 years, we could know the answers to these questions because he cannot plead the 5th any longer, because there is no risk of prosecution. But there are too many Republican cowards on the Hill and they will never truly take this to the mat and force him to testify.
Well, all those questions have been what they have been investigating for 4 years. The public is not entitled to know why someone is paid money by an employer unless there is evidence of illegal activity. They have found no such evidence, and unlike Trump, Hunter did not plead the 5th in his testimony.
I personally would like to know why the Saudis gave Jared Kushner two billion dollars to invest for them when has no investment experience. He is paid many times per year what Hunter received if all of those are even true. But I guess we will never know why Jared deserves tens of millions of dollars a year in compensation from a foreign government, in a deal worked out while he was a Government Employee.
Story I saw said that the $2billion “gift” is now worth around $2.5 billion and the money was paid to Kushner’s Affinity Holding’s, not paid to Kushner personally. Affinity Holdings has a portfolio worth north of $3 billion. But hey, don’t let those facts change your reality.
As for experience, he manages his family’s real estate firm that’s worth $7 billion. He is a cofounder of RealCadre LLC and his share of that is $25 million. His personal net worth is said to be $800 million. He’s got a JD and an MBA, hasn’t been kicked out of the navy for using drugs and doesn’t sell “art” to donors.
LOL, you think of all the people in the world who could invest their money the Saudis sought out Jared Kushner? They could have selected the most successful investment advisors in the world, but they chose Jared, and agreed to pay him ten of millions a year for his experience. It’s a way to give money to the Trump family.
So, you are saying their portfolio is only up 25% over the past four years. I bet they wish they had invested in the S&P 500. They could have done better and paid Kushner nothing. Many investment companies have done far better. I wonder why the Saudis did not demand a better return.
Well, since he did this he should just go ahead and pardon Donald Trump for the political assassinations attempted through the “justice system”. My granny had a saying, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!”
FJB X 2
100%
I’m trying to figure out the 17% who think he was right to pardon his son. Do they think it was okay because of the dad/son thing? Do they think Hunter was unjustly convicted? (he did plead guilty) Maybe they think it was political?
A blanket pardon for ANY crimes he may have committed for a span of 10 YEARS? After saying time and again that he was not going to pardon him. However, I’ve come to expect no less from the left anymore- lies and corruption are their stock and trade.
This from someone who supports a man convicted of 34 felonies, who has committed numerous sexual assaults, and bragged about it, who pardoned his son-in-law’s father of multiple crimes, and who now wants to make a convicted criminal ambassador to France. I can’t give any credibility to anyone who is such a hypocrite.