Daddy's Get out of Jail Card

Presidential pardons are the constitutional equivalent of Monopoly’s® “get out of jail card.” The “big guy” has pulled it for his son Hunter Biden, and there’s squat anyone can do about it. That said, for all those people who believe that Hunter has escaped justice, there may be a silver lining to this which may make it more palatable.

In case anyone needs a refresher, on June 11^th, 2024, a jury convicted President Biden’s son Hunter of three felonies relating to a firearm’s unlawful purchase and possession. Additionally, on September 5^th, 2024, Hunter pled guilty to felonious tax evasion for having withheld $1.4 million from the Internal Revenue Service in order to spend it instead on drugs and hookers (the polite term these days is “romantic consultants”). Before sentencing could be imposed, daddy lame duck exercised his prerogative under the Article II § 2 to wipe Hunter’s record clean, and at the same time – though possibly unknown to him then – daddy wiped out any chance for this family’s return to prominence in national politics.

Controversy has always clung to the presidential pardon. Early critics claimed that it smacked of monarchy and was thus incompatible with a republic in which all citizens were expected to be equal under the law. Modernly the general public tends to accept it more, trusting (naïvely?) that our chief executives will only use it to rescue allies accused of peccadillos, like in 2018 when President Trump pardoned conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza who had run afoul of campaign contribution laws. In any case, a presidential pardon does forestall any federal penalties against the pardon’s recipient, though a cloud of mistrust may persist against the person in the public’s mind, such as when President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon following Watergate.

And President Biden has no card to play against that cloud. After serving in government since his election to the U.S. Senate fifty-two years ago, he may have hoped for Hunter’s rehabilitation from drugs and such so that Hunter could continue dad’s legacy. Maybe the hope was for Hunter to lay low for a while until a public relations blitz could restore his good name in the public’s mind. In a few years, Hunter could have run for office. Maybe exposure over time in that office would springboard Hunter up the food chain. Whatever the plan was, the presidential pardon in Hunter’s case has ensured that no electorate will ever want him as an option, and certainly no one will pine for another Biden presidency at any time.

In full disclosure, I should here stress that philosophically I oppose Hunter Biden’s prosecution for tax evasion since no person should be extorted for taxes. On a practical level, instead of Hunter’s $1.4 million going to the spendthrift federal government, we’re all better off from that cash having gone to his “romantic consultants”!