“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” posted president-elect Donald J. Trump on Truth Social on Sunday. Earlier that evening, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, who in June was convicted in Delaware on federal gun charges and in September pleaded guilty to separate income tax evasion charges in California. Rather than focusing on any particular crimes, as is usual in a presidential pardon, Biden issued a blanket pardon dating back to all federal crimes Hunter “committed or may have committed” since January 1, 2014, the first day of the year in which he joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company widely suspected of corruption that could potentially implicate both Bidens.
Trump, who described the pardon as “such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice” joined a rising chorus of Americans—including an increasing number of Democrats—who are disgusted by the hypocrisy of Biden’s late-term pardon. The outgoing president and his spokespeople had explicitly stated he would not grant such a pardon at least ten times since Hunter was first indicted in July 2023. According to a YouGov poll conducted on Monday, only 34 percent of Americans approve of the pardon. Some suspect Biden may have pardoned Hunter not merely to keep his son out of jail, but to protect himself from incrimination in possible future criminal probes into Hunter’s conduct.
Covering possible crimes in addition to actual crimes is nearly unprecedented, with Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Richard Nixon half a century ago serving as the most recent example. In its breadth and shamelessness, Biden’s pardon sets a new precedent all its own. And it dispels any illusion that Trump should be restrained in issuing pardons in his next term.
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This will have particular relevance when it comes to the over 1,100 protestors who have been convicted over their actions on January 6, 2021, of whom more than 600 were jailed, in some cases for years. Many of the defendants pleaded or were found guilty of nonviolent or low-level offenses, such as trespassing or theft of government property, while others were faced charges of “obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding”—referring to the certification of electoral votes in the 2020 election—a congressional function that was nevertheless accomplished the same day.
These convictions before federal courts in the District of Columbia, where political opposition to President Trump rates the highest in the country, pale in comparison to Hunter Biden’s crimes. The latter include possessing a handgun while actively using drugs and evading over $1 million in federal income tax while spending lavishly on drugs and escorts. But the presidential son now walks free while the politically unconnected Jan. 6 defendants bear stigmatizing criminal records for life or languish in prison for much lesser offenses, most of which had no victims or consequences.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to pardon these defendants. Now that Hunter’s pardon, which follows criminal prosecutions that President Biden described as political persecution, has lowered the threshold, there is little reason President Trump should shrink from pardoning en masse individuals who did far less and who, arguably, were also persecuted for political reasons. If anyone should criticize him, all he need do is point to his predecessor, who not only comprehensively pardoned a serious criminal who happened to be his offspring after lying to the American people about his course of action for a year and half. If Trump makes good on his campaign promise, he will at the very least have told the truth. Call it healing and unity.
Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
