President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter has earned plenty of criticism — and most of it, even the harsh partisan-tinged kind of criticism, has real merit. There’s no defense of the pardon beyond this one: He’s a father, and what parents wouldn’t use whatever power they had to help their children in crisis?
I’m not going to pretend that, facing a similar circumstance, I wouldn’t have made the same decision — do whatever it takes to protect my child even if it means destroying my own legacy.
That is what makes criticism of Biden’s decision complicated. There’s a human element to this that’s tragic on so many levels. It truly does meet the definition of “Shakespearean,” an overused description in today’s world that nevertheless is a perfect fit for this event.
I’m sure this is painful for Biden, and the personal side of his decision is quite plain. The president’s entire life has been filled with compromises prioritizing his family versus prioritizing his duties as an elected official. And no matter how famous you are, no matter how impactful you are in society, ultimately that obituary listing the people you’re survived by never lists co-workers or, for elected officials, constituents.
Obituaries always list family; that’s it. And when you’ve experienced a death of a key family member, who are the folks there every day and night during the mourning period — the co-worker you enjoyed bantering with over the years or the relatives who are there the day after the funeral, the day after everyone else leaves? I don’t mean to diminish nonfamily relationships, but the reality is that over time, the people who are there with you at the beginning of life and at the end are usually the same folks: your family.
So as a human and as a father, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything in my power — and Joe Biden still has a lot of power right now — to protect my son or daughter.
Ultimately, it appears Biden has some regret that his political ambitions put his son in harm’s way politically and legally. One can sense that from his pardon statement:
“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.
“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.”
Note the multiple references to “my political opponents,” as well as the phrase “Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.”
But Hunter did break these laws, and Biden does admit that in his statement. He simply believes his son was treated more harshly because of the political spotlight.
The president is most likely right that the focus on Hunter became politically important to the GOP only after Biden became the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Had Biden not run for president in 2020, charges would likely have never been brought against his son and Congress probably never would have spent a day investigating him.
What’s troubling is that Biden is acting as if there’s no way he could have seen this coming. It was clear in 2018, as the Bidens were deciding whether he would run for president or not, that they had a lot of family members in crisis. Reading the Hunter Biden trial transcripts from Delaware this year show how the Bidens had a lot of family issues still stemming from the death of Beau Biden, who apparently was the family’s rock.
In hindsight, given the family’s struggles at the time with addiction or loss or both, it’s shocking Joe and Jill Biden went ahead with running for president in the first place. The risk of putting a spotlight on family members who were still struggling with their loss was enormous at that time. The GOP had telegraphed — almost as a threat to Biden — that it would drag Hunter through the mud if he went ahead and ran.
This is what makes this entire episode so tragic in Shakespearean terms. I think I can see the anguish in Biden to this day. He hasn’t been the same since Beau’s death — and who among us wouldn’t be changed by that? But the question is whether he should have run in the first place.
Should he have put his family, his party and his country in this situation?
In theory, by choosing to run for president, he was prioritizing the country over himself and his family. That’s what you’re doing when you take on the responsibility of being a civil servant, a political appointee or an elected official — especially an elected official.
In the intelligence community, there are various background checks that assess people’s vulnerability. Sometimes it has to do with vices like drug use or sexual promiscuity, but financial debt and family are also key points of interest. In hindsight, it turns out Joe Biden had a big vulnerability with his family when it came to serving as president.
I hope to never know the feeling of losing a child, so I can’t pretend to understand the various things going through the president’s head when it comes to his son Hunter and how he raised him and Beau. I’m sure there’s all sorts of odd regrets and feelings he has. I wish this weren’t something we had to publicly chew over — but he chose to put his family in the political spotlight. He didn’t have to do this.
And now, the question is: How much damage has Biden done under the auspices of protecting his son?
Presidential acts are permission slips. It’s not quite what Richard Nixon said — “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” — but it’s close. Once a president has done something unprecedented, it means there’s a precedent. And once one president tries something and gets away with it, I promise you, a future one will try something similar.
Well, welcome to a new precedent. The president has now overturned a jury of fellow American citizens, not some kangaroo court, who convicted his son. And he cleared him of not just the charges he has faced, but of any future charges he could face from anything he may have done over a 10-year period from 2014 (when Hunter first tried to do business in Ukraine) to now. Experts told Politico that the breadth of the pardon was unlike anything except Gerald Ford’s controversial pardon of Nixon after his resignation.
That aspect will also set a precedent. Who knows whether Donald Trump grants pardons before he leaves office that read almost identically to the Hunter Biden pardon — but that he makes the dates June 15, 2015 (the day he rode down the escalator), to Jan. 20, 2029, his last day in office? Whatever the chances are, they have surely gone up.
More importantly, Biden has now borrowed Trump’s rhetoric to describe what he views as Hunter’s experience with the justice system. What kind of precedent will we have set if both parties accept the premise that whoever’s elected is going to politically prosecute his or her opponents? It’s part of Biden’s rationale for the pardon. And it will surely be Trump’s rationale for future pardons.
What’s the general public supposed to think of the justice system now? The leading Republican in the country (Trump) and the leading Democrat in the country (Biden) have both claimed the system is unjust because of politics.
Explain to me who’s got the high ground now on this issue. At this point, does it even matter who started us down this road, if everyone believes in the same conclusion? This is where I’m tempted to say, “Welcome to Thunderdome,” because a “Mad Max” reference feels relevant right now, though also a bit too doom and gloom even for my cynical taste.
Biden made a huge mistake, and it really is going to make a lot of people question everything they thought they understood about him in public service.
Character is revealed in tough moments, when the chips are down. Joe Biden had a choice between what was best for himself and his personal conscience and abiding by the oath he took as president. And he may have done what was best for his family, but he did not do what was in the best interest of the nation.
A word of warning to Democrats pulling a muscle trying to defend Biden’s decision here. If you’re a frustrated Democrat because you think Republicans spend too much time trying to defend every move and every appointment Trump makes because they fear punishment for stepping out of line, then don’t behave the same way. I get the sense that many Democrats feel duty-bound to somehow defend Biden’s decision here even if they can’t defend it.
I get there’s empathy for Hunter Biden’s becoming collateral damage in a massive political fight. Some Democrats also fear their criticism of Biden will get weaponized by the right-wing media. Well, so what? Wrong is wrong; take your medicine now. Trying to wish this away or sweep this under the rug as a one-off move from a loving father is a mistake.
This will be a pardon that will reverberate down the road. If you believe it’s bad for the country if Trump mixes his business and his family with governing, then it’s bad when a Democratic president behaves even remotely similarly. This slope is very slippery, and it’s why it’s hard not to ask whether we are witnessing the Trumpification of Joe Biden. He let a personal grievance dictate a presidential decision.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
