Presidential pardon frees Biden’s son, tarnishes faith in American justice

 By Shankar Raj*

Washington: The rare Presidential pardon issue by President Joe Biden freeing his son Robert Hunter Biden, an American attorney and businessman, of all charges has further enmeshed and deepened the entanglement of politics and the rule of law that has tarnished faith in American justice and is almost certain to worsen in Donald Trump’s second term.

Ironically, Joe Biden has demolished the independence of the Justice Department which was brashly eroded by Trump in his first term in office and had vowed to protect the rule of law. All that was in shambles when Biden issued the pardon order on Sunday, December 1, 2024. Biden’s pardon of his son has, in a way, made presidential history – a President pardoning his son.

The pardon comes weeks before he leaves the White House and ahead of sentencing later this month of Hunter over a pair of gun and tax convictions that emerged from the due process of law.

Biden took cover after special counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss the federal cases against Trump — over election interference and the hoarding of classified documents — on the grounds that presidents can’t be prosecuted.

Taken together, the convergence of legal controversies raises questions about the bedrock notion that underpins the system of justice in the United States that everyone — even presidents and their families — is equal before the law.

Till the pardon came, Biden was firm and always insisted that he would not take that step in the aftermath of the shifting political environment caused by Trump’s election victory last month.

Politically, Biden’s controversial pardon will be seen as a stain on his legacy and his credibility. The President may also have offered an opening for Trump’s party to rally behind Kashyap ‘Kash‘ Patel, the loyalist whom the president-elect picked on November 30, 2024 evening to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and serve as an apparent agent of his campaign of political retribution.

Given the selection of Patel to head the FBI and Trump’s second pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, there are reasonable grounds to expect that Hunter Biden may have been among those whom the president-elect’s loyalists were likely to hunt, given their vows to use their powers to go after Trump’s enemies.

The political impact of the pardon could be profound. Already, Republicans are arguing the Hunter Biden pardon shows that the current President, and not the next one, is most to blame for politicizing the system of justice by meting out favourable treatment to his son. Their claim may not be accurate, but it can still be politically effective.

Trump used pardons to protect multiple political aides and contacts during his first term, including his daughter’s father-in-law, who’s now his pick for ambassador to France. But any time in the future that Trump is criticized for his use of pardon power, he will be able to argue that Biden did the same to protect his son.

This could be especially significant as Trump comes under pressure from supporters in the coming months to pardon those convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021, mob attack on the US Capitol — many of whom are still in jail.

Yet Joe Biden, after a life of tragedies and heartache, asked Americans to judge him as a father who was clearly worried about the impact of a potential jail term on his son, a recovering addict.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the President. An impeachment inquiry by House Republicans that looked at Biden’s and his son’s business relationships — which Democrats saw as an attempt to inflict political damage ahead of the election — went nowhere. The cases against Hunter Biden lack the Constitutional gravity or historical importance of the indictments against Trump and his frequent attacks on the rule of law.

Robert Hunter Biden, the second son of Joe and his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, was convicted by a jury in June 2024 of illegally buying and possessing a gun, after a trial exposed his drug abuse and family dysfunction. He pleaded guilty in September 2024 to nine tax offences, stemming from $1.4 million in taxes that he didn’t pay while spending lavishly on escorts, strippers, cars and drugs.

Joe Biden’s supporters though find some validity to the President’s claim in his December 1 statement, that his son was “treated differently” because of who his father is. Charges relating to the illegal possession of a firearm while being addicted to a controlled substance and regarding a false statement on the matter are quite rare, for instance. And Republican congressional probes into the matter, which imploded over a lack of evidence, looked like naked attempts to damage the President.

*Shankar Raj is a former editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.