Pardon me if I'm angry and confused
Well, I am somewhere between angry and confused. Angry because this pardon is such an abuse of presidential powers. Confused because he could have called out the weaponization of justice against Trump and then pardoned his son. Instead, Hunter gets pardoned for everything going back to 2014 and walks away.
So rather than merely pardoning his son for the gun crimes for which he was convicted and the tax crimes for which he pleaded guilty, the president’s pardon covers all “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in” from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. That language mirrors the language in Ford’s pardon of Nixon, which did not merely cover the Watergate scandal but extended to “all offenses against the United States” that Nixon “has committed or may have committed” between Jan. 20, 1969, and Aug. 9, 1974 -- the exact span of Nixon’s presidency.
The starting date of Jan. 1, 2014, in the Biden pardon was surely not chosen randomly: Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company, in April 2014, while his father was vice president. Republicans have accused the younger Biden of illegally profiting off his position on that board.
A pardon that goes back a lifetime, as some may conclude. The comparison to Nixon is unfair. He was a president who resigned in disgrace and never made a dime out of the Watergate affair. Hunter Biden is an opportunist who rode on his father's plane to make money off his official duties.
So we will survive another "Bidenism" and the country will bounce back. I cannot say that about the Biden presidency, which is one step closer to the bottom of the list of worst presidents.
And last, but not least, there can't be a lot of happy anti-Trumpers or Democrats who told us that Biden was a man of character. It won't be pretty for those who made excuses for Biden until he takes that helicopter to Delaware in 60 days.
P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.
Image: acaben