måndag 2 december 2024

Votes on Biden's pardon

Analysis: A decision where Biden put family first

In the end, Joe Biden reacted like a father when he pardoned his son Hunter, writes CNN's Jeff Zeleny in an analysis. For Biden, family has long come before everything else.

Unlike other decisions Joe Biden has made, this one did not come after long deliberations with associates. Instead, it was a family decision where his role as a father came first.

The Guardian's David Smith also writes about the strong family bond in an analysis.

“An act of love from a father who has already known too much grief? Or a hypocritical political maneuver reminiscent of his great political opponents? Perhaps both options can be true," he writes.

Regardless, many Americans will now see the decision as a double standard when Biden chooses a family member over other possible cases to pardon, according to Smith.

DN's Björn af Kleen also addresses the double standard. It will now be more difficult for Democrats to criticize Republicans. And it reinforces the American electorate's belief that there is a "cream pie for the children of power, hidden privileges that would never be revealed to ordinary mortals outside of Washington DC."

Expert: Joe Biden has nothing to lose - his way of saying "go to hell"

Joe Biden's pardon of his son Hunter Biden is almost unprecedented in US history. The reason is its scale, experts told Politico.

Former pardon lawyer Margaret Love says she has never seen anyone pardoned for crimes that did not lead to prosecution, with the exception of when Richard Nixon was pardoned by Gerald Ford in 1974.

- Even the most extensive Trump pardons were specific when it came to what was pardoned, says Love.

Joe Biden's pardon covers not only the crimes Hunter Biden is convicted of, but all crimes he has committed or may have committed from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.

Dennis Goldford, professor emeritus of political science at Drake University in Iowa, interprets it all as Joe Biden no longer has anything to lose.

- I would think that this is his way of saying: "Go to hell", says Goldford to TT. 

Analysis: Biden questions the fairness of a system he has so far defended


Nowadays, there is one thing that Joe Biden and Donald Trump agree on: the Biden administration's Justice Department has been politicized. That's what Peter Baker writes in an analysis in the New York Times after the announcement that Biden is pardoning his son Hunter Biden.

Baker writes that Biden sounded very much like his successor when he railed against selective prosecution and political pressure. In the pardon, Biden suggests that the charges against Hunter were politically motivated.

"He questioned the fairness of a system that he has up to now defended," writes Baker.

In an analysis in The Atlantic with the headline "Biden's unforgivable hypocrisy", Jonathan Chait writes that Biden broke his promise not to pardon his son. Chait says it's tempting, but unfair, to draw a direct parallel to Donald Trump's consistent avoidance of justice.

"Yet principles become much harder to defend when their most famous defenders have flagrantly compromised them," Chait writes.

CNN's Stephen Collinson writes that Biden's pardon could have profound political consequences.

"According to the Republicans, this shows that it is the current president who is most to blame for politicizing the justice system [...]. Their claim may not be correct, but it can still be politically effective.”

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