OF COURSE Joe Biden Was Right to Pardon His Son

I don’t believe I’ve read a worse collection of double-takes in the weeks since Donald Trump’s re-election than the endless stream of white columnists and pundits whining about Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden. The idea that the “rule of law” is somehow being undermined — in this crazy country that just elected a convicted felon who promised to persecute his political enemies — by the routine use of an extraordinary presidential pardon is simply insane.

And yet, the cadre of institutionalists who have watched with ineffectual shrillness as Trump continues to sledgehammer the very idea of ​​government are deep in their feelings about the Biden pardon. Here is the header from The New YorkerIsaac Hottiner:

Biden’s pardon of Hunter further undermines his legacy
By pardoning his son, the president put his family above the American people.

But that’s what is usually clear minded Tom Nichols wrote Atlantic:

Pardoning Hunter Biden is a strategic mistake
This mistake will haunt Democrats during the next Trump administration.

The premise of both of these pieces, and many, many others like them, is that sparing one’s own family is inherently depraved. More importantly, Biden’s detractors argue that his use of the Hunter pardon somehow cedes the mythical “high ground” to Trump and clears the way for him to pardon terrorists on January 6.

In essence, these pundits are making the same mistake that has plagued the American media for at least a decade: demanding that Democrats play by a set of rules that Republicans have long since rejected. And I’m tired of it. I will no longer participate in the masturbatory Kabuki theater that pretends there is some objective set of standards and norms that some politicians must act by while others are free to ignore them.

In case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t any “rules” — more precisely. There is simply power. Now Biden has it, and he’s taken advantage of it. If only he had used it a little more often over the last four years, instead of spending most of that time trying to “restore” the standards and norms destroyed by Trump.

Trump will soon have all the power and we don’t have to guess how he will use the pardon power because he is already in use it is for its own corrupt purposes. You know what’s “worse” and more depraved than pardoning your family members? Pardoning your criminal co-conspirators. That’s what Trump did. Here is the list of Trump pardons after his first term. These include his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who lied to the FBI for Trump; former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who lied for Trump during Robert Mueller’s investigation; attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan, who lied to Mueller; dirty con man Roger Stone, who literally tampered with witnesses; and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was involved in an international conspiracy to obstruct justice and commit tax fraud.

Oh, I’m not done. Do you want a family apology? How about when Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his daughter’s husband, who was convicted of 16 counts of fraud and perjury and witness tampering? (By the way, Trump just picked Kushner as his ambassador to France.)

And we all know that Trump would pardon his children without a moment’s hesitation if any of them were actually prosecuted for crimes. But Bob Mueller, playing by the old rulebook, refused to do it, and Merrick Garland preferred to hide under his desk for four years rather than do his job, so Trump never got the chance.

Again, these are just some of the people Trump has already pardoned But the institutionalists want to tell me that now will he be “unbridled” in using the pardon power because Biden pardoned his own son? Or that before all this he was somehow afraid of pardoning the rebels on January 6? Does anyone really believe that?

Trump is going to do what he’s going to do – there’s no institutional convention to stop him, and the sooner people get this through their thick skulls, the better the level of discourse in this stupid country will be. The problem I should care about is that Democrats have given up some of the ephemeral heights that would have allowed them to oppose Trump’s terrorist pardon. Who are these people who think bitches from a slightly elevated position are more effective at restraining brute political and military power? Do they also think that there are magical bears that pluck rainbows and that we can overcome authoritarian regimes through the power of friendship?

If institutionalists really want an institutional solution to the problem, I have one: the pardon power is anachronistic nonsense and should be struck from the Constitution.

Speaking as someone who understands how to make a legal system based on equality before the law and due process work (which is not the legal system we have in this country at all), it is simply antithetical to the principles of the rule of law to have one person who can turn the entire court system on its head on a whim and a signature. Presidents (and Governors) should not have the power to overturn beliefs based on their feelings. When the justice system gets it wrong (as it does all the time), there should be a free and equal process for overturning convictions, without having to have special access to the thought bubbles of the most powerful political figure in the country. To the extent that the system is not good enough, it needs to be made better. Maybe we should do something useful, like federally fund the Innocence Project, and get rid of the right to pardon?

If the institutionalists want to start a movement to amend the Constitution and remove the presidential pardon power, I will be with them. If instead they just want to complain about a Democrat using their power to the max while the Republicans are using all their power the whole damn time, they can completely skip me with this self-defeating argument.

Of course, Biden isn’t really using his pardon power to the “maximum,” and that’s the reason for it criticism from the left. They argue that Biden should grant pardons far more widely to help some of the millions of people who have been harmed by our criminal justice system but do not have the advantage of sharing the president’s DNA.

I understand that argument, but more than Biden using his pardon power to give boons and rewards to those he deems worthy, I would like him to use the executive branch in coordination with the legislative branch to actually reforms criminal justice system that does so much harm. But Biden did not. Congress, during the short two years that Democrats controlled both houses, did not. Asking Biden to reform the criminal justice system using his pardon power when he has failed to reform it using all his other presidential powers seems strange and unhelpful.

Biden is not a criminal justice reformer and never has been. This is the guy who wrote the infamous crime bill in 1994 shouted“Fund the police!” after all, in his State of the Union address. Something Biden has however, he was always a loving father. Even if you believe that Biden demeaned his position by pardoning his son, I don’t know any parents who wouldn’t do the same. This is even more true in this situation where Hunter Biden has only been prosecuted and prosecuted because he is the president’s son. If my child was being persecuted because of my work and I could make it stop, I’d do it faster than Eddard Stark publicly declaring Joffrey Lanni-er-er-Baratheon to be the real one Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.

People need to stop demanding that Democrats play by a different set of rules than Republicans, and they certainly need to stop demanding that Biden be a worse parent than any of us in his situation.

That’s a good apology. Trump’s pardons have been bad and will be again. If you can’t tell the difference between pardoning your son who was persecuted for your work and pardoning your criminal conspirators or pardoning the terrorists who attacked the Capitol at your behest, you need to get your head out of your ass.