CNN’s Elie Honig did not mince words about the Hunter Biden pardon or shy away from the consequences—Donald Trump now has a wide berth to wield this power as he wishes. All presidents have this power, and Democrats can’t complain or do bupkis about it. Joe Biden said he would never pardon his son for the gun and tax charges that were slapped against him. Hunter was found guilty of the gun charges in June, and the president mulled a pardon, contrary to his declarations that he was not considering such a thing. We all knew it was a lie.
The knuckleheads at CNN and MSNBC thought otherwise, and now everyone within the liberal pundit sphere has been utterly embarrassed. Honig captured this act perfectly: This Hunter pardon is a “historic act of nepotism.”
CNN's Elie Honig says Biden's pardoning of Hunter is "a historic act of nepotism" @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/G5IbDBOfzq
— Nicole Silverio (@NicoleMSilverio) December 2, 2024
He elaborated further in the Intelligencer, adding his analysis of the charges you might disagree with. However, he concluded that the pardon tarnishes the president’s legacy and undermines the justice system. Honig also offered an alternative punt on this issue, not that Biden has the intelligence or mental cognition to pull this off on the messaging front:
The problem is in how Joe Biden has handled the situation. For months, the president denied he would do precisely what he’s just done. His position was categorical, forceful, indignant even. In June 2024, David Muir of ABC News asked Biden if he would “accept the jury’s outcome, their verdict, no matter what it is” (on the then-pending gun case) and if he had “ruled out a pardon” for his son. Both times, the president answered sternly and simply, “Yes.” For good measure, Biden denied that he would commute his son’s sentence, adding, “I abide by the jury’s decision.” The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, categorically denied many times over that the president would pardon his son. “I’ve been very clear: The president is not going to pardon his son,” she declared in December 2023.
Now, nobody really believed Joe Biden. In March, I predicted, “He’s getting a pardon, if he needs one.
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Hunter Biden now avoids sentencing in both his cases, which likely would have resulted in at least some prison time. Under the federal guidelines — which judges must consider but which are not binding — he likely faced a year and change on the gun charge and two to three years on the tax case. It’s highly unlikely he would have gotten probation or other non-incarceratory sentences on both. And, because the pardon includes a “full and unconditional” grant of clemency for all conduct dating back to January 1, 2014, Hunter Biden cannot be federally prosecuted for those gun and tax crimes or for anything else. (Any conduct before 2014 is surely precluded by the statute of limitations.) The closest historical precedent is Gerald Ford’s 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon, which also contained blanket protections for the disgraced former president. That’s not company Joe Biden will relish, but he’s earned it.
The shame of it all is that Joe Biden could have handled the pardon issue so much more honestly and made a stronger substantive case in the process. Instead of lying, Biden could have offered a standard political hedge: “I haven’t fully considered it yet, but I’ll examine it carefully when the time is right, and I’ll do what I believe is in the best interest of justice.” An honest punt is preferable to a bold-faced lie.
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Joe Biden could have positioned the pardon as a merits-based decision on which reasonable minds can disagree. Instead, he broke out the sanctimony and cried victimhood while breaking his unequivocal promise to the American public. And now he has tarnished his own legacy and undermined the very justice system he claims to so deeply revere.
As he leaves, Biden is torching the White House, giving zero you-know-whats before January 20.
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