Hunter Biden is guilty, so Joe Biden should pardon his son | Debra J. Saunders

WASHINGTON

President Joe Biden said he will not pardon his son Hunter, who pleaded guilty to nine counts of felony and misdemeanor tax crimes Thursday in Los Angeles.

I hope Biden backs down from his promise not to pardon until young Biden spends a night behind bars. I suspect that’s the president’s plan: to change his mind and pardon his son after the November 5 election.

I don’t think it would be a good precedent to imprison a president’s son. In the age of constant political retaliation, punishment of one side ultimately begets reciprocal retaliation. And it’s only getting worse.

Take impeachment proceedings, for example. The “I” word was a nightmare for Bill Clinton in 1998. Trump has been impeached twice as president, yet he won his party’s nomination this year.

If Hunter Biden goes to prison, know that family members of Republican politicians will be considered legitimate targets. Democrats too.

In June, a Delaware jury convicted the president’s son of three counts of felonious possession of a firearm. Sentencing for those crimes is scheduled for November 13.

It is important to note that Hunter has been sober for five years. He is no longer the danger to society he was when he drove drunk, sometimes armed, leaving behind traces of cocaine and unpaid bills. He was a menace to society, but now he is an embarrassment.

I’m not a fan of Hunter Biden.

I think he’s a complete fraud who sold his access to his father, then vice president, rather than accept the kind of top 2% salary he could have earned as a Georgetown and Yale law graduate.

Consider the statement released by Hunter Biden on Thursday:

“I will not put my family through further pain, invasion of privacy and unnecessary embarrassment. For all I have put them through over the years, I can spare them this, and so I have decided to plead guilty,” the son wrote in a letter made public.

The president’s son also said he was done with prosecutors who “focused not on justice but on dehumanizing me for my actions during my addiction.”

Despite all his complaints, he pleads guilty because he is guilty of the tax charges, just as he was guilty of the weapons charges he was convicted of in June.

Problem: As special counsel David Weiss observed, by 2020 the president’s son had gotten sober and collected more than $1.2 million — and he still hadn’t paid his taxes. He was just greedy.

I should note that 2020 was the year his father was running for president, so you would think he would be on his best behavior.

But as the president liked to say: “My son did nothing wrong.”

Ultimately, Hunter Biden faces life in prison as Hunter Biden. And his father won’t be president for much longer.

Now that I have that idea out of the way, I return to the idea of pardon. While he is at it, perhaps the 46th president could consider a pardon for Donald Trump’s criminal charges – election interference and willful withholding of classified documents.

Republicans often complain about “legal fraud” — and rightly so. Perhaps Trump should take the first step by promising to pardon Hunter Biden if his father doesn’t. But no one expects that to happen.

Contact Washington Review-Journal columnist Debra J. Saunders at [email protected]. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.