WASHINGTON — Democrats have spent much of their presidential campaign warning that Donald Trump is a threat to the rule of law, public institutions, and even truth itself.
In forgives his sonPresident Joe Biden has undermined each of these arguments while giving Trump political cover to pursue far-right ambitions that Democrats fear will harm the country, some MPs and strategists of the party said this on Monday.
The sweeping pardon means Hunter Biden will face no criminal convictions in two separate cases, one on gun charges and the other on tax evasion.
In addition, the pardon, which Biden has repeatedly vowed never to grant, insulates his son from any federal crimes he has committed in the past 10 years.
A father’s natural desire to protect his son, who is struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, can be appreciated by people.
“Do you know any dads who wouldn’t do the same?” Retiring Sen. Joe Manchin, IW-Va., asked NBC News on Monday.
“I’ll put it this way — if I had a son, I would forgive him,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told reporters.
However, in justifying the pardon, Biden went further than paternal affection, challenging federal prosecutors as claiming that Trump was the victim of partisan harassment.
In a statement on Sunday, President Hunter said Biden was “elected and unfairly persecuted.” The legal saga is “infected” with “crude politics” that creates a “miscarriage of justice”.
Nowhere does he use Trump’s favorite phrase – “Witch hunt!” – but the meaning is the same.
A senior law enforcement official called the White House’s approach “ridiculous,” noting that shortly after taking office in 2021, it was Delaware’s U.S. Attorney David Weiss who decided to retain him to continue the investigation into Hunter Biden. It’s Biden.
“They took a gamble that didn’t work out the way they hoped,” said former Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley.
Having spared his son from all punishment, Biden, and by extension, his fellow Democratic leaders, may lose some of the moral authority they need to challenge future pardons granted by Trump.
Trump already said it Consider an “absolute” pardon Each of the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. If he follows through, Trump could try to soften the blow by seeking a pardon for Biden.
Ty Cobb, a former special adviser to the Trump White House who has become a critic of the former president, said, “If Trump plans to pardon criminals on January 6, he will be acquitted.” “And no doubt his supporters will take that as justification. This is a tragedy for the country.”
Biden’s rationale for pardoning his son supports Trump’s argument that there are rots in the judicial system that need to be ironed out. That helps Trump make his case and fire some career lawyers trying to enforce the law, critics of the pardon say.
Indeed, Trump’s press secretary Caroline Leavitt used Biden’s pardon to bolster Trump’s arguments in an interview with Fox News on Monday evening.
“Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden proves that President Trump’s signature campaign promise to end the weaponization of our justice system must happen,” he said, adding: “President Trump made that promise. He’s going to deliver. He’s going to root out corruption.” will cut”.
Democratic strategist Chris Coffinis said in an interview: “The unfortunate thing here is that [Biden] It basically legitimized those charges against the Justice Department, and it would reverberate over the next four years. This is the problem.”
The incoming Trump team already views the Department of Justice with much skepticism. The MAGA movement aims to dismantle what supporters call the “deep state” of career government employees, and the Justice Department is clearly in Trump’s crosshairs.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s choice to head the department, said in the past that prosecutors who brought charges against Trump were members of “a cabal.”deep state“He was trying to undermine Trump. He said last year, “prosecutors, the bad guys will be prosecuted.”
The Department of Justice is one of the most powerful and important institutions in the United States. Prosecutors can make and save lives through investigations, trials, and subpoenas. Robert H. Jackson, former US Attorney General warned in his speech In 1940, “the prosecutor is at his best one of the most benevolent forces in our society, but when he acts with malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.”
If Americans lose faith in the Justice Department’s impartiality, it could create cynicism about the rule of law. Democrats argue that Trump has fed a collective distrust of institutions like the Justice Department with his repeated claims that he is a constant target of bogus prosecutors.
Now it’s Biden who’s bolstering the rule of law, justifying the pardon of what prosecutors see as a false allegation that Hunter Biden was politically motivated.
A judge has already ruled that there is no basis to believe that Hunter Biden is the victim of selective harassment. In April, the US District Judge issued a decision Mark ScarsiHunter Biden, who oversees the tax case, said in an order dismissing his attorneys’ claims of targeting that it “does not present a reasonable inference, let alone clear evidence of discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent.”
Whether Trump or Biden insults federal prosecutors, trust in government suffers. Indeed, trust in government institutions in the United States has been on a downward trend since the 1960s. Pew Research Center. As of April, only 22% of Americans said they believed the government would do the right thing most of the time. 60 years ago this figure was 77%.
Rep. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press Now” program Monday: “We need the American people to have confidence in important institutions like the Department of Justice. … And I think what’s happened in the last 24 hours has hurt that. gave
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., a usually staunch Biden ally, condemned the pardon.
“I think what he did was wrong. It will only further undermine people’s confidence in the Department of Justice and our judicial system as a whole,” said Peters, who is up for re-election in 2026.
Another victim of the pardon is part of Biden’s legacy. He has always prided himself on being a truth teller and said, “My word like a Biden.”
But Biden promised not to pardon his son, and he did. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also repeated this false oath. tried tthat defense Monday and insisted that Biden was not lying.
“He said this weekend that he came to that decision, and that he’s fighting it and that he has faith in the justice system, but he also believes that raw politics has infected the process and caused a miscarriage of justice,” he said. On Air Force One.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, said: “The notion that Biden is selling — ‘As a Biden, I promise you’ — doesn’t hold true. So in this case, there’s a further erosion of his legacy.”