President Biden became the latest to expand the limits of presidential powers with his breathtakingly broad pardon of his son Hunter, covering all federal crimes he may have committed over a decade.
Legal analysts said they couldn’t fathom an analogy for Mr. Biden’s action, which covered an unprecedented period, had no limits on the types of crimes pardoned, and included a prospective pardon for any actions Hunter Biden may have taken Sunday night after the pardon was issued.
Conservatives and many liberals said Mr. Biden stretched propriety and gave political cover to his successor, President-elect Donald Trump, to pardon all the participants in the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The “Full and Unconditional Pardon” applies to Hunter Biden’s federal convictions of tax dodging and illegally purchasing and possessing a firearm and covers any possible crimes for a decade.
The pardon covers every potential federal offense from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024, including anything the president’s son might have done in the hours after the pardon was issued.
Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2014, so the pardon would cover the accusations being investigated on Capitol Hill that he used his father’s name to enrich himself and provided kickbacks to his father.
SEE ALSO: Biden’s pardon of Hunter hands leverage to Republicans on tax cuts, gun laws
“I don’t know a pardon that stretches back a full 10 years,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional expert and professor at South Texas College of Law. “Had Hunter Biden murdered someone on Fifth Avenue during that period, he could not be charged with a crime. It is a get-out-of-jail-free card for the past decade, and it’s really remarkable.”
Clemency experts said they were unaware of a pardon covering a decade of possible crimes, including unenumerated charges. The only presidential pardons that come even close are half that length.
In 1974, President Ford issued a broad pardon of former President Richard Nixon that covered the Watergate scandal and “all offenses” Nixon may have committed during his five years in the White House. Nearly 100 years earlier, President Andrew Johnson pardoned former Confederate soldiers for their actions during the four-year Civil War.
“This would make Nixon blush,” said Jonathan Turley, who teaches constitutional law at George Washington University. “I have never seen language this sweeping except for the Nixon pardon. Of course, Ford was not pardoning his son and covering crimes in a scandal where he himself was implicated.”
A president’s pardon power is considered absolute and cannot be reversed by the courts or a future administration.
Over the past 25 years, presidents have expanded the scope of acceptable grounds.
SEE ALSO: Special counsel bristles at Biden’s explanation for why he pardoned son Hunter
President Clinton issued controversial pardons of his half-brother Roger Clinton, political megadonor Marc Rich, and Susan McDougal, who had served a sentence for contempt of court because she refused to testify about the Clintons’ involvement in the Whitewater scandal.
President Obama used his pardon power to grant leniency to hundreds of people convicted of drug crimes that reflected attitudes toward drug use that the president thought were outdated.
Mr. Trump opened new ground when he pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a prominent political ally, even before Mr. Arpaio’s sentencing on contempt of court charges. Mr. Trump said the prosecution of Mr. Arpaio was politically motivated and he was correcting that — essentially what Mr. Biden said Sunday night.
Congressional Democrats asked the trial court to ignore Mr. Trump’s pardon. They said contempt of court was beyond the reach of a presidential pardon. The judge sided with the president.
Mr. Trump also pardoned his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner.
Mr. Biden’s pardon appears to cover potential perjury charges against his son.
“In that sense it protects the president as well as his son in hampering any effort to criminally charge in the influence-peddling scandal,” Mr. Turley said.
Mr. Biden said his son was targeted for prosecution because of his last name and he felt compelled as a father to deliver the pardon.
The White House scrambled to defend his reasoning Monday, especially after Mr. Biden said for months that he would not pardon his son.
“The president took an action because of how politically infected these cases were,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One.
Eric H. Holder Jr., who was involved in the Clinton pardons and later served as Mr. Obama’s attorney general, defended Mr. Biden’s decision.
He said prosecutors would have declined to bring the case if Hunter Biden had a different name.
“Pardon warranted,” he said on social media.
Special counsel David Weiss, who brought the cases, rejected that reasoning in a federal court filing Monday in Los Angeles, where Hunter Biden was awaiting sentencing on tax fraud charges.
“There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case,” Mr. Weiss wrote. He said the claims that the Justice Department singled out his son were “baseless.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Mr. Weiss, the U.S. attorney from Delaware, as special counsel in August 2023. He indicted Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges roughly a month later.
Mr. Weiss urged the court not to dismiss the case, which would leave the case on Hunter Biden’s record even though he would not be sentenced.
“No court has agreed with the defendant on these baseless claims and his request to dismiss the indictment finds no support in the law or the practice in this district,” Mr. Weiss wrote after Hunter Biden’s legal team filed notices with the courts in both criminal cases saying the pardon “moots Mr. Biden’s pending and yet to occur sentencing and entry of judgement in this case and requires an automatic dismissal of the indictment with prejudice.”
Frank O. Bowman, a law professor and expert on impeachment and the pardon power, called the pardon a mistake.
“He did the crimes. He deserves punishment,” Mr. Bowman said on social media. “That he is [the] president’s son doesn’t excuse him.”
He said Mr. Biden has given “permission to Trump to abuse [the] pardon power himself.”
“For the country’s sake, Biden should have had [the] fortitude to let his son take his deserved lumps,” the scholar wrote.
The pardon covers the period when Hunter Biden was a member of the Burisma board. He earned more than $1 million a year despite having no experience in the oil and natural gas sector.
Former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was pursuing an investigation into Burisma over allegations of money laundering, tax evasion and corruption. Republicans say Mr. Biden, who was vice president at the time, pressured the Ukrainian government into firing Mr. Shokin and killing the investigation.
Republicans also say Mr. Biden knew of and participated in some of his son’s business deals. The White House has repeatedly denied that allegation.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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