Joe Biden pardoning Hunter was never in doubt. Will he pardon himself next? Plus, the DOJ & FBI need complete overhauls.

By Gary Abernathy

It’s amazing that anyone ever believed that Joe Biden would not pardon Hunter, despite repeated assurances

Did anyone ever believe that President Joe Biden would not end up pardoning his son, Hunter? From the clips above, apparently a lot of people did — and they used it to contrast Biden’s supposed dedication to law and order with Donald Trump’s constant complaints about a weaponized justice system.

Biden’s blanket pardon of his son is the least surprising story of the year, and it’s entirely relatable to any parent (and everyone else who can imagine being a parent). Any parent who loves his or her child and has the pardon powers of the presidency at their fingertips wouldn’t hesitate to use it on behalf of their child, right or wrong, especially to spare their offspring from possible jail time.

What was always confounding was the flat insistence on the part of Biden and his spokespeople that he would not pardon his son. Everyone — everyone — knew that was a lie. The instances where Biden or others on his behalf time and again insisted — to the point of stern admonitions for even asking the question — that a pardon and/or commutation were off the table have been enumerated elsewhere. And each time, Biden was setting himself up for eventual accusations of being a bald-faced liar.

There were always other ways the question could have been answered. Even just saying, “President Biden has no plans to pardon Hunter” would have left the door open for the explanation that his plans changed. Yes, such an answer would have led to endless follow-up questions, but so what?

The insistence by Biden and his White House that he flatly would not pardon Hunter was consistently laughable. And Biden’s explanation for the pardon has made things worse. Here are numerous examples why:

• “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” Until he broke his word.

• “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. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room — with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.” Fact check: The deal unraveled when the judge asked a couple of simple questions that the prosecutor and defense attorney could not agree upon; clearly, neither side really understood what the deal actually meant.

• “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.” This harkens back to former FBI Director James Comey’s famous assertion that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges against Hillary Clinton for her email debacle — leading to prosecutors coming out of the woodwork to disagree.

• “For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth.” Hard to believe he included that line while at the same time demonstrating himself to be a liar in regard to the pardon.

• “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice...” Donald Trump almost assuredly sent a thank-you note to Biden immediately upon reading that comment, since it so perfectly echoes Trump’s own claims about a politicized Justice Department.

Biden’s pardon of his son has been met with condemnation across the political spectrum, predictably from Republicans, but less predictably from Democrats who know how badly the action — and Biden’s rambling explanation — hurts their opposition to Trump’s determination to dramatically disrupt and reform the DOJ and the FBI.

There are those, including outgoing (former Democrat, now independent) Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, suggesting that Biden should pardon Trump, just to make things seem a little more balanced. But the bigger question should be: Will Biden pardon himself?

Biden’s pardon of Hunter covers anything and everything from all the way back to 2014, when his son began a business relationship with foreign entities that even Biden’s supporters consider troubling. Republicans have long alleged — and frankly, much circumstantial evidence supports the idea — that the president himself has been part of unethical and possibly illegal actions in regard to Hunter’s businesses.

There are already suggestions that the pardon of Hunter Biden takes away the protection of his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself — since he can’t be prosecuted — thereby forcing him to answer questions about his business and everyone else involved in it. Will Joe Biden pardon himself, his brother, or others, either to protect himself against real crimes, or to forestall lengthy congressional probes into his family’s business dealings, whether they’ve been criminal or not?

Pardoning Hunter for everything over the course of the past decade only makes sense if additional pardons are coming. Hunter was not operating in a vacuum. The president’s brother was a business partner in some deals, and, as we know — again, despite denials — Joe Biden himself took part in some meetings, if only by telephone. He is almost assuredly the “Big Guy” referred to by another business partner’s email reference to holding a “10% stake” in a Chinese energy business.

Before Joe Biden leaves office, it’s almost certain that more pardons are coming in connection with the Hunter Biden fiasco.

Yes, the DOJ and FBI need dismantled and rebuilt

Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash

Let us stipulate that Donald Trump should have done more, and done it more quickly, to calm the angry mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and that there was no good reason for Trump to take classified documents home with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House.

Having stipulated as much, we can also conclude that while his behavior was less than admirable on both those fronts, neither rose to the level of the actions that the DOJ ultimately pursued. Neither a raid on Mar-a-Lago and subsequent charges while negotiations were underway for the classified documents’ return, nor the filing of charges for Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot (like it or not, he urged the crowd to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol) should have happened. It was all overkill by an overzealous Justice Department against a former president whom everyone knew was very likely going to be the candidate running against the current White House occupant overseeing the very same DOJ.

Likewise, FBI leadership has been arrogant and rather drunk with power for quite some time. Former Director James Comey absolutely bragged on numerous occasions about being so clever as to send agents into a Trump White House during its organizational stage — and the media thought it was all just marvelous.

As constitutional expert Jonathan Turley wrote:

What was shocking was not that Comey violated protocols or policies again but the reaction of the audience to his admission. In describing how he set up a critical meeting with Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Trump, the audience was audibly thrilled by his cleverness in keeping Flynn unrepresented by legal counsel and unaware of the true nature of the meeting… He revealed, “So if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel and there would be discussions and approvals and it would be there. I thought, ‘It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple of guys over.’” …Just send a couple of guys over. One line could not more aptly capture Comey and his own professed view of “ethical leadership.”

Wow.

This is the same guy who later admitted that he arranged for a leak to the New York Times in the hopes of getting a special counsel appointed to investigate Trump. Later, the Inspector General’s report rightfully slammed Comey for that action:

The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties. Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.

Did Comey feel understandably chastised? Not exactly. In fact, he arrogantly demanded an apology. And, of course, the DOJ declined to prosecute him.

This is the same FBI where agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page conspired — that’s my take — to derail Trump’s candidacy in the first place, with Strzok assuring Page that Trump wouldn’t win. Here’s that text exchange from August 2016:

Page: “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”

Strzok: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”

Reminder: Strzok was the agent overseeing the investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia. Let that sink in.

By the way, whatever happened to Strzok and Page? Well, Strzok became an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a frequent MSNBC guest analyst, while Page was hired as an NBC/MSNBC legal analyst. Of course. They both sued the FBI for releasing their text messages and won hefty settlements. Only in America.

Trump’s first choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, rightfully didn’t last long, and I’m giving Trump the benefit of the doubt in assuming that Gaetz’s nomination was a ploy to get rid of him completely, first getting him to resign from Congress and then to withdraw his nomination as AG. Pam Bondi is a good nomination for that post.

Kash Patel is the kind of complete disrupter needed to send a message that the FBI is going to face the kind of rebuild it truly needs — not by an entrenched professional who will trim around the edges and announce that all is well now, but by someone with no relationships or loyalties to anyone in the agency and whose only focus will be a complete overhaul, as painful as it will sometimes get.

For Christmas, give ‘MAGA Republicans Are Already Normal’ — a perfect gift for Trump supporters and for friends and loved ones confused about the election

“MAGA Republicans Are Already Normal — And Other Shocking Notions” is the perfect Christmas gift for Trump supporters. But it might also help friends and loved ones make sense of the 2024 election results who just don’t get it. It’s available on Amazon. Buy it here.

The book (actually much thicker than the illustrations above indicate — the hardcover and paperback are each 453 pages) is a compilation of many of the columns I wrote for The Washington Post from 2017 to 2023, and covers a variety of topics, but it particularly focuses on Trump’s rise to political prominence and helps explain his appeal.

Here’s a link to a website dedicated to the book.

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