WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s decision break his word and pardon Hunter’s son sparked a broader discussion about what else he should do using the president’s broad clemency powers before he leaves office in January, including whether he should pardon Donald Trump.
Biden on Tuesday, he dodged questions about his son, ignoring calls to explain his change as he made his decision first presidential trip to Angola.
During a meeting with Angolan President João Lourenço at the presidential palace, he laughingly dismissed shouted questions on the matter, telling the Angolan delegation: “Welcome to America.” Biden was not expected to take questions from the press during his trip to Africa and has largely avoided contact with reporters since becoming president-elect. Trump victory last month.
» READ MORE: Biden is pardoning his son Hunter even though he previously promised not to do so
Biden’s decision to grant a full pardon to his son for actions over the past 11 years has sparked political turmoil in Washington after the president repeatedly said he would not exploit his emergency powers to benefit his family. Biden claimed the Justice Department committed a “miscarriage of justice” in prosecuting his son, using the same language Trump uses to describe his legal troubles.
Biden’s reversal resulted in a tie criticism from many Democratsthat are working to adapt their approach to Trump, who will be preparing to take over the Oval Office in seven weeks. There are concerns that the pardon – as well as Biden’s claims that his son was prosecuted for political reasons – will limit their ability to oppose the modern president’s legal moves. And it was threatening Biden’s legacy cloud as he prepares to leave office on January 20.
» READ MORE: New Jersey senator-elect Andy Kim says Hunter Biden’s pardon fuels assumption that ‘well-connected players are playing by a different set of rules’
Hunter Biden is the closest relative of a president ever granted clemency, but other leaders have pardoned family members and close friends. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger for drug charges after Roger Clinton served his sentence. Before Trump left office after his first term, he granted 144 pardons, including: Charles Kushnerfather of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He also pardoned staunch supporters of Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and others convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
In the months after the 2020 election, Trump and his allies tried and failed to repair this loss, culminating in a violent riot by his supporters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. There were discussions at the time about whether Trump would preemptively issue a pardon some of the people involved in this action – and maybe even themselves – before leaving office. But that never happened.
Now Democrats are having similar discussions about pardons on their part because of Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign. He did not hide the fact that he wanted revenge on those who persecuted him or who persecuted him. He’s talking about “enemies from within”. He sent out social media posts calling for the imprisonment of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. He also took aim at Liz Cheney, a conservative Republican who campaigned for Harris, promoting a social media post that suggested she wanted military tribunals to punish her because she was guilty of high treason.
» READ MORE: Hunter Biden’s ill-advised pardon sends a unsafe message | Editorial
Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said on Boston Public Radio last week that Biden might consider a broad pardon to protect people from the wrath Trump might expect, but also as a way to lead the country beyond this acrimonious and divided time.
“I think without a doubt Trump will try to act in a dictatorial, fascist way, at least in the first year of his administration, vindictive against people he believes have done him wrong,” Markey said.
Presidents have broad pardon powers for federal crimes. This includes pardoning people who have not yet been charged, as President Gerald Ford did in 1974 when he pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, over the Watergate scandal. The decision caused confusion at the time, but in the decades that followed it was seen as a move that helped restore order.
Markey cited Ford’s pardon as a way for the country to “simply close this chapter and move on to a new era.” Biden could do the same, Markey said, to aid the country move to an “ordinary families agenda.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat-turned-independent, went a step further and suggested that Biden should even pardon Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, with federal charges now evaporating with Trump’s impending return to White House.
“Why don’t you go ahead and pardon Donald Trump on all his charges?” – he said in an interview for CNN. “This meeting would be much more balanced. I’m just telling you to erase them.
At the same time, Democratic lawmakers and criminal justice reformers are pressing Biden to grant clemencies to broad groups of Americans. Democrats Ayanna Pressley, Jim Clyburn and Mary Gay Scanlon wrote to Biden on November 20, asking him to use his clemency powers to “address long-standing injustices in our legal system and put our nation on a path to ending mass incarceration.”
The letter, also signed by 61 other people, suggested that Biden could use his power to send a strong message about criminal justice reform and “correct unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences handed down by judges.”
“We encourage you to use your power of grace to help a wide range of people and causes, including the elderly and chronically ill, people on death row, people with unjustified sentencing differences, and women punished for defending themselves against perpetrators,” they say. he wrote.
So far, Biden has pardoned 25 people. Most presidents make a series of clemency requests at the end of their term, and it’s likely Biden will do the same. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden is “considering this process very carefully.”
