With only a few weeks left in office, President Joe Biden announced that he was issuing a sweeping pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. Just about everyone had something to say about it, and most of it was critical.
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00:00With only a few weeks left in office, President Joe Biden announced that he was issuing a
00:04sweeping pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. Just about everyone had something to say about
00:08it, and most of it was critical.
00:10Hunter was convicted in federal court twice, once in June and again in September. The first
00:14conviction stemmed from the president's son lying about his drug use on a form he filled
00:18out so he could purchase a gun. In September, Hunter pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges.
00:23Hunter was awaiting sentencing in both cases and was likely to face jail time.
00:28President Biden had been asked multiple times after Hunter's first conviction whether he
00:31would pardon his son. He said at the time that he wouldn't. He said in June,
00:35I'm not going to do anything I said. I abide by the jury decision. I will do that, and
00:40I will not pardon him.
00:42That was back when the president was still a candidate for re-election. He dropped out
00:46in late July. Now that the election is over, President Biden has changed his tune. He said
00:51in a statement on December 1,
00:53The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress
00:57instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. No reasonable person who looks at
01:01the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out
01:05only because he is my son, and that is wrong.
01:08Those political opponents President Biden referred to responded with all the fire and
01:12fury you might expect. President-elect Donald Trump, who issued quite a few pardons for
01:16friends and family members of his own at the end of his first term, brought up the people
01:19who had been convicted for the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. He wrote on Truth
01:24Social,
01:25Does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 hostages who have now been imprisoned
01:29for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of justice.
01:32Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, formerly the chair of the Senate Judiciary
01:36Committee, latched onto the president's promise that he wouldn't pardon Hunter, writing on
01:40Axe, formerly Twitter,
01:41I am shocked President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter because he said many, many
01:45times he wouldn't, and I believed him. Shame on me.
01:48House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed on Axe that this was just one example of the sitting
01:51president and his son's mishandling of the justice system.
01:55Trust in our justice system has been almost irreparably damaged by the Bidens and their
01:58use and abuse of it. Real reform cannot begin soon enough.
02:02Plenty of other Republican lawmakers said similar things. Representative James Comer
02:06of Kentucky, head of the House Oversight Committee, even referred to the Biden crime family in
02:11his statement.
02:12Perhaps the most damaging statement came from Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and
02:16Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, two IRS whistleblowers who worked on the Hunter Biden case for years.
02:22Their statement on Axe read, in part,
02:23It is a sad day for law-abiding taxpayers to witness this special privilege for the
02:26powerful.
02:27Even some of President Biden's political allies questioned his decision. Democratic Representative
02:32Glenn Ivey of Maryland told CNN that, while he understood the president's reasons,
02:36A pardon at this point will be used against, I think, Democrats when we're pushing to defend
02:42the Department of Justice.
02:43Governor Jared Polis of Colorado went in even harder on Axe, writing,
02:47I'm disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country. This is a bad precedent that
02:51could be abused by later presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.
02:55Political analyst Nate Silver, who said he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in
02:59the election, called President Biden a selfish and senile old man and a long string of ex-posts
03:04criticizing the pardon. That said, others defended President Biden's decision. Eric
03:08Holder, who was attorney general under President Barack Obama, wrote of Hunter,
03:12Had his name been Joe Smith, the resolution would have been, fundamentally and more fairly,
03:16a declination. Pardon warranted.