President Trump's pardons are a slap in the face of the law and justice.
Yeah, but whatabout President Biden?
I received this comment from a reader whose pen name is Low Dudgeon:
Biden's statement in the final minutes of his presidency (per BBC reporting 1/20/25) assured Americans that his pardons should "not be mistaken as an acknowledgement" that any of those covered "engaged in any wrongdoing." That included son Hunter, unfairly awaiting sentencing for two federal felony counts.
After all, Hunter was the victim of an overzealous, politicized Department of Justice and doesn't deserve to spend a single day in jail. He is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by far-right radicals. Other members of the Biden Family got special consideration, but that too was just and appropriate. It was right.
Sarcasm is often misunderstood when it is written. Were it spoken we would hear the sneer and the "gotcha" in the tone of voice. This was sarcasm. Low Dudgeon is making a point I am reluctant to acknowledge, but must. He is right.
Joe Biden made petty, self-serving decisions that blur the distinction with Trump. It gives Trump and MAGA true-believers a basis for saying that Trump is only doing what Biden did.
Republican committees attempted to find clear evidence of "Biden crime family" bribery, and came up empty except for testimony that the accuser then recanted and admitted he invented. Hunter Biden is a mess. One can feel sorry for the problems in his life, but the result is a person with major addictions and compulsions, poorly hidden, and a willingness to trade on his father's offices. Hunter Biden received $50,000/month income from Burisma by sitting on its board, an obvious case of a company trying to buy access and influence. Friends of Joe Biden bought paintings by Hunter for $500,000 each. Buying a painting from Hunter Biden is the equivalent of buying NFTs and the $TRUMP cryptocurrency from the Trump family. One buys imaginary value of something created at near-zero cost for the purpose of buying influence. Trump is so much better at this. Hunter got $500,000. The Trump family stake in $TRUMP, invented out of this air, is some $2 billion.
Ivanka Trump's husband, Jared Kushner, establishes a hedge fund with no experience, no track record, and no basis for a sovereign wealth fund to entrust him with money other than buying influence with Trump. The Saudi professional staff recommended against an investment. The Saudis overruled the recommendation and invested $2 billion at a negotiated fee of 1.25%/year, or $25 million a year. Jared Kushner was getting over $2 million a month.
But Democrats need to admit the simple truth. Joe Biden did not stop Hunter from muddling the issue of family grift. Biden did it small time. Trump does it big.
And then, in the final days of his term of office, Joe Biden pardoned Hunter from the two felonies that Hunter admitted to. A precedent was set. I hear Democrat say, "Well, a father loves his son. . . " as a way of excusing this decision.
I take a different view of it. A president tells Americans in the military that their duty is to do something hard and life-threatening. Those service members have fathers and mothers. We ask people to do hard things for the good of the country. It is their patriotic duty. In reality, Hunter would have gotten the first-offense slap on the wrist that we give white-collar criminals, a little time in a country club prison. It is not a hard thing, not compared to what a commander in chief asks other people's sons and daughters to do: face an enemy in battle. Joe Biden could have stood for duty and respect for the law. He didn't. He copped out.
That sends a message: that we don't really value law and duty. We value connections. And that is the message Trump is sending with his pardons: connections.
I get it. I can hear the "but, but, but" from readers. Biden's sins are small compared to Trump's. After all, Hunter Biden's Burisma deal and his getting pardoned did not endanger the republic, not like Trump's corruption does. Well, maybe Biden's indulgences did endanger the republic. President Biden obliterated the clear distinction between Democrats and Trump. Biden needed to set a standard that was counterpoint to Trump. He didn't.
So we have Trump.
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7 comments:
Mr. Dudgeon is essentially alleging that the only difference between the criminality of Trump and President Biden is one of degree but not kind. I call bullshit.
It’s true that, like addicts everywhere, Hunter Biden was peddling whatever he could to feed his habits. But as Peter points out, exhaustive investigations by Republican committees were unable to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. The crimes Hunter was convicted of had nothing to do with his father.
In contrast, Trump himself is a convicted felon with other felony indictments of a treasonous nature that he was only able to evade because Republicans don’t give a rip and made him president. That’s quite a difference in kind.
It’s a matter of degree, misdemeanor versus felony. Habitual liar cheat versus rarely liar cheat. The repeat criminals get more time because the pattern is set. The first time offender more likely to get a lessor sentence for the same crime.
If Republicans hadn't threatened anyone there would be no need for defensive pardons.
We have descended into debating equivalent familial degenerates as a measure of our public discourse. I'll pass...
Our legal system is based on English common law where court decisions evolve punishments that fit the crime. Legal precedent is the result. In our legal system we included a feature allowing the president to pardon or reduce punishment. This action does not establish a new precedent.
Joe just did what any father would do for his son, is he could.
I think the largest presidential pardon ever was Jimmy Carter's forgiving thousands of draft dodgers, after the end of the Vietnam War. I would say most educated elites and liberal types were fully in support of that; part of our national healing, right? Arguably, one could say that Carter's massive pardons had much more serious negative effects on the rule of law, and national security, than even what Trump did with the January 6 attackers of the Capitol. Anyway, interesting to think about.
Amidst all this weighing of scale, awareness, motivation and mitigation, there is one constant, whether the subject is Hunter's lucrative business trips with Joe to Ukraine and China on Air Force Two; Joe's own role as sitting Veep in the Burisma saga; that 10% allegedly set aside for "the Big Guy"; brother Jim and other family preemptive pardon recipients; Hunter's own guilty pleas to felonies; or Joe's repeated promise to not pardon Hunter, because of Joe's honorable, counter-Trumpian respect for the rule of law and judicial process.
That constant? We have his word as a Biden.
Joe may or may not have deliberately helped make this bed, but he's arguably, er, lying in it, after generously throwing part of a blanket over Trump.
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