On Sunday Biden announced a pardon of his son Hunter, who had been charged with gun and tax charges. I've really not commented on said charges. I've mostly defended against attempts of GOP partisans to argue to argue the Biden's had corruptly interned to protect Ukraine energy company Burisma, where Hunter held a lucrative board seat. (Shokin, the corrupt Ukraine Prosecutor General, a target of the Obama Administration, the IMF, the UK and the EU had in fact helped the Burisma oligarch evade UK money laundering charges. Biden had issued an ultimatum, but the parliament fired Shokin months later for internal reasons, and Biden took credit. Shokin, trying to save face, accused Biden of sabotaging an in-process investigation into Burisma. In fact, his deputy resigned months earlier over Shokin slow-walking prosecutions. Was Shokin on the take from corrupt targets? I don't know but Shokin\s "diamonds prosecutors" were notorious.) And my understanding is Burisma's issues predated Hunter's appointment to the board. Now I've always held that Joe Biden had an ethical responsibility to demand Hunter resign his board seat to avoid the appearance of buying protection, especially since Obama made Biden his czar of enforcing Ukraine corruption reform compliance tied to Ukraine aid. And I know there were Obama Administration personnel opposed to Hunter's involvement with Burisma to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.
Keep in mind that (Republican) US Attorney David Weiss started his criminal investigation of Hunter Biden in 2018 under the Trump Administration. Biden Administration AG Garland agreed to appoint Weiss as a special counsel in 2023. Hunter's charges have to do with felony (gun) or misdemeanor (tax) allegations of tax evasion or false tax records in the mid to later 2010's and procuring firearms during a period he allegedly had issues with drug addiction, a disqualifier for federal gun registration. (Hunter had received an administrative discharge from the Navy Reserve in Feb. 2014 after testing positive for cocaine use.) In addition, Biden was being investigated as an alleged unregistered foreign agent, reportedly involving Ukraine and China. based on data from a purported abandoned Hunter Biden laptop. (There are some suspicions of chain of custody and some concerns about Russian disinformation with the purported laptop, although no evidence of the latter to date.) There was a plea deal involving tax charges with a so-called diversion agreement to deal with the gun charges. As part of the diversion agreement, Biden would go through a two-year drug-free probation. Biden has also reportedly paid his related outstanding tax debts. There were some disagreements in the plea deal, especially over whether the foreign agent investigations were included in the agreement, with the prosecutors maintaining related investigations were ongoing and reserved the right to pursue later charges, independent of the tax and gun cases The judge had some technical issues with how the plea deal was structured, So Hunter entered not guilty pleas on the three charges, but in a more recent development in September he pleaded guilty to the tax charges.
So, on Sunday, despite repeated promises not to issue a pardon for his son Hunter, Biden issued a blanket pardon from 2014 through the start of this month (I suspect this long period might be related to Hunter's alleged unreported involvement in business deals in Ukraine and China). the fact remains Weiss up to the point of the pardon had not charged Biden, and it's possible, if not likely. that any alleged wrongdoings are beyond the statute of limitations,
Biden bitterly argues that Hunter is being singled out for the gun charges and that Hunter had already paid off his tax debts. Republicans believe Biden himself may be implicated as profiting from Hunter's business dealings and think Biden might be motivated by self-interest.
As I've tweeted, I've long been concerned about presidential abuses of pardons. e;g., GHW's pardon of Iran-Contra officials, Clinton's pardons of his half-brother and Marc Rich, Nixon's pardon of Hoffa, Obama-s pardon of Chelsea Manning, and Trump's pardons of Manafort, Sone, Bannon and the father of of a son-in-law. But the most notorious from my point of view was Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon.
I had been planning to vote for Gerald Ford. It wasn't that I wanted to see Nixon in prison. but Nixon had resigned before impeachment. But the Watergate grand jury had secretly named him as an unindicted co-conspirator and the only reason he was unindicted was because you don't indict a sitting POTUS. So, when Ford pardoned Nixon, Ford had given short shrift to due process and not held Nixon responsible for his crimes.
Biden's pardon of Hunter similarly gave short shrift to due process, was unusually sweeping in nature, and corrupt in nature since it put nepotism over the rule of law. I personally regard abuse of the pardon power an impeachable offense.
