Joe Biden managed to rack up quite a few shameful moments during his four years as president, but outside of the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan the worst may have been the pardon he issued to his son Hunter after his conviction for lying about his drug use when purchasing a handgun (and his guilty plea for falsifying tax returns).
For months beforehand, Biden insisted that a pardon was off the table, yet after Hunter was convicted and before he was sentenced, Biden reversed course and gave his son the "Get Out of Jail Free" card he swore would never be delivered.
Now, former First Lady Jill Biden is defending the indefensible, claiming that Hunter needed his daddy to step in to spare him from the wrath of Donald Trump.
“When [President] Trump was elected, things changed, and we knew that he would target Hunter, and we just could not let our son go to jail on a charge that no one would go, I mean, no one has ever gone to jail for,” the former first lady said on “CBS News Sunday Morning.”
“Did you urge the president to pardon Hunter?” CBS News’s Rita Braver asked her.
“Oh, gosh, I truly supported it. I wanted him to pardon Hunter at that point, and I agreed with Joe,” she responded.
In December 2024, then-President Biden announced he signed a pardon for his son and argued that the charges against him were brought for political reasons. The pardon cleared Hunter Biden in two federal cases.
No one's ever gone to prison for lying on a Form 4473, or for being an unlawful user of drugs who possessed a firearm? Tell that to Patrick Darnell Daniels, who received a 48-month prison sentence after admitting he regularly consumed marijuana while owning a gun.
Hunter Biden was charged by a special prosecutor appointed by his father's attorney general, and a jury of his peers convicted him after hearing an abundance of evidence. There is no evidence that Hunter's charges were politically motivated, and the evidence against him made conviction a slam dunk. Hunter had written extensively about his drug abuse in his memoir, including incidents that occurred days before and after he purchased a revolver.
I happen to the think Section 922(g)(3) is unconstitutional, but it's not like the Trump administration has suddenly reversed its stance on the statute. It vigorously defended the law before the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Hemani, and has continued to bring charges under the statute while the Supreme Court deliberates its constitutionality.
We don't even know that Hunter Biden would have received any prison time at his sentencing, because his daddy issued him a full pardon before a sentence was handed down. What could Donald Trump have done to Hunter if he had been incarcerated when he took office? If Biden had been transferred to a maximum security prison or sent into solitary confinement the media would have torched those actions.
In fact, Trump himself told Salem's Hugh Hewitt that he would consider a pardon or commutation of Hunter just weeks before he won election to a second term.
"See, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they've done to me, where they've gone after me so viciously... and Hunter's a bad boy. There's no question about it. He's been a bad boy. All you had to do is see the laptop from hell," he said.
"But I happen to think it's very bad for our country," Trump added.
I think Trump would have reveled in pardoning Hunter Biden after he was sworn in as president in January, 2025. After Hunter's daddy did it, though, Trump called it a "miscarriage of justice" and "an abuse."
Most Americans agree. In a survey taken shortly after the pardon was issued, just 32% of those polled said they thought the pardon was inappropriate.
A majority of Americans (57%) say Biden’s pardon of his son makes it harder for Democrats to criticize similar actions by Trump. Just 37% say it has no effect on Democrats’ credibility in this area. Among members of the public who identify as a Democrat, 37% say Biden’s action undermines their party’s credibility while 52% say it has no effect.
Maybe that same 52% of Democrats will believe Jill Biden's claim that her hubby had to pardon his son in order to save him from the wrath of Trump, but I doubt too many others are going to buy what she's selling. Not just her BS argument about the pardon, but her new memoir that's the entire reason she's talking to the media right now.
