Why the Hunter Biden pardon is 'justified' — according to legal experts

02 December 2024

President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is issuing a full pardon for his son Hunter Biden sent shockwaves throughout the media on Sunday, with many on the right expressing outrage and many on the left—although not all—defending his decision. Some legal experts, explaining why the charges should never have been brought, say Biden is right to issue the pardon even after having said he would not.

While many are looking at this through a political lens, not a legal one, President Biden explained both the political and legal aspects in his announcement.

“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”

Biden began by saying in his statement that, from “the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.”

The President did not explain just how far away he kept himself from the prosecution of his son.

“Biden bent over backwards to keep his hands off this prosecution, at considerable cost to his family,” noted professor of law and former federal prosecutor Kim Wehle, writing at The Bulwark. “He did not remove or change the mandate of the Trump-appointed prosecutor handling the case, even as that prosecutor’s investigation was granted special counsel status last year.”

President Biden did allege that, without a full pardon, his opponents would continue to target Hunter Biden.

“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. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Eric Holder, who served as the U.S. Attorney General during most of President Barack Obama’s two terms, weighed in on the Hunter Biden pardon.

“Here’s the reality. No [U.S. Attorney] would have charged this case given the underlying facts. After a 5 year investigation the facts as discovered only made that clear. Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been – fundamentally and more fairly – a declination. Pardon warranted,” he wrote, saying that the prosecutors should have declined to file charges.

“Ask yourself a vastly more important question,” Holder continued, mentioning Trump’s nominee to head the FBI. “Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s preeminent law enforcement investigative organization? Obvious answer: hell no.”

Other legal experts, including those who have made those very decisions of whether or not to charge someone, agree.

MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg served at the vaunted SDNY, the Southern District of New York Office of the U.S. Attorney.

“As SDNY Criminal Division Deputy Chief, I was responsible for approving charges and non-prosecution requests. I wouldn’t have approved Hunter Biden’s tax or gun cases. If Hunter’s last name wasn’t Biden, I don’t believe he would have been charged. His pardon is justified,” she wrote.

Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor for two decades, says she agrees with Greenberg.

“When I was Chief of the San Jose Branch of the US Attorney’s Office, I, too, was responsible for approving charging and declination decisions. I would not have approved any of the charges brought against Hunter Biden,” de la Vega wrote.

Civil liberties and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler responded to Greenberg, writing: “There’s even more than this going on. [Special Counsel] David Weiss WASN’T going to charge either of these (he hadn’t even investigated gun crime before Statutes of limitation expired). But he did bc of political pressure from House and Trump (and threats to his family). So the charges are problem.”

“Folks don’t seem to understand why Biden pardoned Hunter from 2014 to present,” Wheeler also wrote. “That’s because David Weiss had repeatedly decided he couldn’t charge Burisma allegations from 2014 and 2015, but Kash Patel and others were insistent he should be charged for something w/Burisma.”

“Effectively, a prosecutor twice decided that 2014-2015 — the heart of Trump’s claims about Hunter Biden — couldn’t be charged, but with Patel coming in at FBI, Hunter had to expect that prosecutorial decision would be revisited,” she added.

Juliette Kayyem, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School/John F. Kennedy School of Government, writes, “True: Biden said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter. Also true: Whatever Biden said may have been legitimately superseded by intervening events, such as Patel’s nomination to the FBI.”

And she scolded the press: “If all reporters are tweeting is that Biden changed his mind, perhaps do some reporting as to why.”

A CNN national security analyst, Kayyem predicted on-air on Sunday (video below) that Trump’s FBI pick, Kash Patel, is “going to go after Trump’s political enemies, likely the Biden family, the Cheneys, people who had been in the involved with the January 6th. Committee, just simply to sort of scorch the earth against him.”

“I’m not saying they’ll end up in jail, but he’ll start investigations simply to sort of whitewash Trump’s involvement with incitement, illegalities, Russia, whatever it is,” she explained. “So that’s that’s we know that’s going to happen and that’s why Biden has to consider whether he’s going to pardon his son at this stage. But what we do know is Trump’s not messing around.”

On Sunday, Law & Crime reported that, “Hunter Biden’s legal team released a report over the weekend that included a ‘stark warning’ that the first son may face retribution at the hands of incoming President-elect Donald Trump. With the election of the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president, the ‘threat against Hunter is real,’ his lawyers claim. The report was released on Saturday ahead of President Joe Biden issuing a full federal pardon for his son on Sunday night.”

“’Here, in one place, is the complete and reprehensible history of the political persecution of Hunter Biden,’ one of Biden’s lawyers, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement,” Law & Crime reported, pointing to a “52-page report, obtained by the Washington Post and Washington Examiner, [that] laid out the criminal prosecutions that led to convictions for Hunter Biden.”

“This is a seven-year saga propelled by an unrelenting political desire to use a son to hurt his father,” Lowell also said.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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