President Biden used his executive powers earlier this week to pardon his son Hunter Biden, who was found guilty of tax violations and a gun charge related to filing a false federal document.
The granting of clemency to his son was met with a fierce backlash from both Republican and Democratic politicians.
This backlash seems quite ironic, since President-elect Donald Trump himself is now seeing multiple pending federal cases against him dismissed and will see sentencing for state felony convictions put on hold due to his victory in the recent White House election.
Throughout the whole process of judicial proceedings against Trump and the younger Biden, we have all heard the mantra, “Nobody is above the law.” But we know that mantra doesn’t fully reflect the reality of how criminal and civil cases are prosecuted or, in many cases, not pursued at all. Many powerful people, like the crooked financiers behind the 2008 economic collapse, manage to break the law without consequences. Meanwhile, Black and brown citizens are disproportionately prosecuted and incarcerated in our state and federal judicial systems.
As we look back to the previous Trump administration, the former president pardoned numerous individuals, including the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Charles Kushner, who served several years in prison on tax evasion and other charges. The president-elect just named the elder Kushner as his ambassador to France in the upcoming administration.
Trump is expected to pardon numerous defendants convicted in the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol — an attempted coup for which Trump himself was facing charges until just recently. Calling the Biden pardon “an abuse and miscarriage of justice,” Trump sarcastically asked whether clemency extended to “the J-6 hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?”
The double standard displayed by Trump and his backers towards the Biden pardon is obvious. No Republican or Democratic politician should be surprised or call into question Biden’s decision to save his son from a prison sentence no matter what he said previously on the topic.
The pain and anguish of a father for a troubled son knows few bounds. Who can forget King David’s lament when he cried, “O Absolom! My son, my son!” after news of his death reached the Biblical king.
In Biden’s case, he had good reasons to question the case against his son, who was the subject of congressional inquiries over business dealings in Ukraine — probes clearly intended to politically damage his father. A plea deal to keep him out of prison was rejected by the judge even though the charges against him rarely result in imprisonment. The gun Hunterpurchased while addicted to drugs was never used in a crime and hepaid back over $1 million in taxes owed to the Treasury. Convicted by a jury, he was facing sentencing when he received the sweeping pardon.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” said Biden in a statement after issuing the pardon. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out because he is my son.”
The controversy over the pardon sparked renewed calls for Biden to more broadly use his clemency powers to redress what many see as systemic abuses in the judicial system that leave prisoners of color behind bars or labelled for life as felons.
“President Biden used his pardon authority last night in response to what he saw as an injustice of the legal system,” said U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley in a statement after the pardon. “I have called on President Biden to use his clemency power to change the lives of families across the nation — families who are disproportionately Black and brown, with loved ones behind the wall, suffering from injustices of the legal system.”
Speaking as the daughter of a formerly incarcerated parent “who has gone on to make great contributions to society, I know firsthand how life-changing the President’s action would be and how much hope it would give to millions who call America home,” said Pressley, who has authored and cosponsored numerous pieces of legislation aimed at reducing mass incarceration and creating a more equitable legal system.
As Biden’s term in office comes to a close, no one should be surprised that he used the powers of the presidency to not just pardon a Thanksgiving turkey but to save his son from jail-time. Emily Galvin-Almanza, an attorney serving as executive director of the group Partners in Justice, pointed out to the Nation magazine that presidents in the 1920s “used to grant pardons and clemency to thousands of people. Now, with the notable exception of President Obama, who did use his pardon and clemency powers, presidents just don’t do that that much anymore.”
In this season of giving and spiritual reflection, let’s hope President Biden listens to leaders like Pressley and Galvin-Almanza and looks beyond his son to offer others equally deserving of clemency a second chance.
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