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President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is a done deal. The president has not only obviated the existing cases against Hunter; the sweep of the pardon effectively immunizes his son against prosecution for all federal crimes he may have committed over the course of more than a decade. This pardon is a terrible idea—“both dishonorable and unwise,” in the words of the Bulwark editor Jonathan Last—and, as my colleague Jonathan Chait wrote yesterday, it reflected Biden’s choice “to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”
But it was also a tremendous strategic blunder, one that will haunt Democrats as they head into the first years of another Trump administration.
The Constitution vests American presidents with the power to pardon anyone for crimes against the United States. (They cannot pardon people for offenses at the state level.) Usually, such pardons involve clemency for ordinary criminals; occasionally, they include distasteful personal or political favors to friends, allies, and in rarer cases, family. Donald Trump, however, has promised to start the process of issuing deeply controversial pardons the minute he gets into office.
Perhaps most disturbing, he has said he’s going to start reviewing cases of the January 6 insurrectionists—whom he has called “warriors” and “hostages”—and to let many of them out of prison. Nothing will stop Trump from doing such things, nor will he pay any political price for such future pardons: All he ever cared about was winning the White House to stay out of jail, and he’s accomplished that mission.
But the Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump World, and had Biden not pardoned his son, elected Republicans at every level would have had to answer for Trump’s actions without reference to the Bidens. They would have had to say, on the record, whether they agreed with Trump letting people who stormed the Capitol and assaulted law-enforcement officers out of jail. Although Trump would have remained beyond the reach of the voters, the vulnerable Republicans running for reelection might have pleaded with him to avoid some of the more potentially disgusting pardons.
Forget all that. Joe Biden has now provided every Republican—and especially those running for Congress in 2026—with a ready-made heat shield against any criticism about Trump’s pardons, past or present. Biden has effectively neutralized pardons as a political issue, and even worse, he has inadvertently given power to Trump’s narrative about the unreliability of American institutions. Biden at first promised to respect the jury’s verdict in Hunter’s gun trial, and vowed he would not pardon Hunter—and then said that because “raw politics” had “infected this process,” he had to act. And so now every Republican can say: When it comes to pardons, all I know is that I agree with Joe Biden that the Justice Department can’t be trusted to treat Americans fairly. I’m glad he finally saw the light.
Some people see Joe’s pardon of Hunter as an act of mercy, an expression of a father’s love for a son who has been through the hell of addiction. I understand those arguments. (In 2020, I wrote about the relationship between Joe and Hunter.) I also know that many Americans believe that Hunter would have been targeted by the Justice Department next year as part of Trump’s carnival of revenge. I am less convinced about this, not least because Joe Biden could have waited until Hunter was sentenced for his federal crimes later this month and then commuted his punishments while fashioning a more limited pardon for other issues. Instead, the father gave the son a pass on any federal crimes committed during more than a decade of his life.
And I fully understand that pleas about norms have little impact on Democrats who are tired of adhering to such quaint notions while Trump trashes them at will. It’s stomach-turning to watch Republicans criticize Biden for this pardon after Trump handed them out during his first term like a guy spreading around drink vouchers in front of a casino. And besides, some might say, who cares about norms and the rule of law if Trump is back in power? The Bidens should get what they can get while giving Trump the finger, shouldn’t they?
I think anyone making these nihilistic arguments will come to regret them, but that’s a discussion for another day. In the meantime, I am more worried about the Hunter pardon as a practical political matter.
Biden has now hobbled an effective case that his own party could have made going into 2026, even against Trump. Most people understand corruption, and though they may not care about it very much, they don’t like it shoved in their faces. Some of Trump’s pardons could have been politically damaging to Republicans: Just over a week ago, a poll found that 64 percent of Americans would object to pardoning those convicted for January 6–related offenses.
But how do Democrats make that case now that Biden sounds so much like Trump when it comes to the justice system? Biden’s statement on the pardon had a kind of Trumpian, unspecific paranoia to it: “In trying to break Hunter,” the president stated, “they’ve tried to break me—and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
As Chait asks: “Trying to break Hunter? And his father? To what end?” This pardon has more than a whiff of panic around it, and if President Biden is unnerved about the outcome of a process controlled by his own Justice Department, how can any of us object to a future President Trump letting people out of jail based on the same fears? The reality, of course, is that Trump’s malevolent and trollish pardoning of various cranks and cronies is not in the same universe as an anguished father pardoning his son, but President Biden has now ensured that no one will really care much about the difference.
Joe Biden is at the end of his career and angry at a political world that has made his son into an object of hate and ridicule. With the stroke of a pen, he saved Hunter and stuck it to everyone else—including, perhaps, the people who forced him to give up his campaign while Hunter was reportedly pleading with him to stay the course. Every parent can understand why he wanted to yell screw you into the wind before he headed out the door. Unfortunately, he may have also screwed many members of his own party in the process—and undermined the resolve they’ll need to defend the rule of law.
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Today’s News
- Trump announced on Saturday that he picked Kash Patel, a former public defender and Trump loyalist, to be the FBI director. The nomination would require ousting the Trump-appointed FBI director Christopher Wray.
- Rebel forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad advanced over the weekend and took over Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city.
- French lawmakers introduced no-confidence motions against Prime Minister Michel Barnier; if successful, the vote could break apart his government.
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