Although U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman told Cowboy State Daily she expected President Joe Biden pardoning his son for ongoing federal gun and tax evasion charges to be an “inevitable” event, she doesn’t believe that makes Biden’s sweeping pardon of his son Hunter on Sunday right.
As a result of the pardon, Hunter Biden won’t face any federal charges stemming from the crimes he committed or may have committed over the last 10-plus years through Sunday.
“The scope of pardon is breathtaking, encompassing all of Hunter’s activities over the last 11 years,” Hageman said. “As a result of this pardon, Hunter cannot be prosecuted for any potential criminal activity related to Ukraine, China or any lobbying activities that enriched the Biden crime family.
“More importantly, Joe Biden may have also sanitized his own record in terms of benefitting from Hunter’s foreign actions.”
According to Politico, it’s the most expansive pardon issued by a president since 1974 when former President Richard Nixon was pardoned by former President Gerald Ford.
Cowboy State Daily also reached out to Wyoming U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis for reaction, but hadn't heard back before this story was published.
But in a social media post, Barrasso also slammed the decision.
“Joe Biden said he would not pardon his son for the crimes he has committed. He lied,” Barrasso wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. “Tonight’s pardon is wrong. It proves to the American people that there is a two-tier system of justice.”
The pardon came just 50 days before Biden is set to leave office and hand over the keys to the Oval Office to President-elect Donald Trump.
In a post to social media, Trump, who has repeatedly criticized Hunter Biden over his legal and personal issues, called the pardon, “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”
Broad And Vague
Biden issued the wide-sweeping, “full and unconditional pardon” pardon Sunday after repeatedly insisting he would not do so. His press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did the same, repeatedly saying Biden would not issue a pardon for his son and often chiding reporters for asking about it.
The pardon includes any and all offenses Hunter Biden committed or may have committed or taken part in from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024.
“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, told Politico.
“Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned,” Love added.
According to Politico, the language of Biden’s pardon matches the Nixon pardon, which covered “all offenses against the United States” that Nixon “has committed or may have committed” between Jan. 20, 1969, and Aug. 9, 1974 — the exact span of Nixon’s presidency.
The exact time span of Hunter’s Biden’s pardon is also significant. Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company, in April 2014, while his father was vice president. Republicans have accused the younger Biden of illegally profiting off his position on that board.
“In Joe Biden’s America, nobody is above the law — except Hunter Biden,” Hageman said.
What He Said
Joe Biden explained his pardon in a statement, declaring “enough is enough” and that he made the decision because the charges against his son were politically motivated and designed to hurt him politically.
He believes the federal prosecution of his son was launched as an effort to destroy his son, who has been sober for five and a half years after abusing crack cocaine, alcohol and other substances.
“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,” Joe Biden said in a statement. “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.”
The pardon appears to insulate Hunter Biden from any kind of further federal prosecution once Trump takes office, unless he commits new crimes in the future. Some political pundits had speculated that he could also be charged with bribery, illegal lobbying or other crimes stemming from his foreign business activities and drug addiction.
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision,” Biden said in his statement.
Even though Biden is choosing family over politics with his pardon, his decision to pardon his son will likely be looked at as a negative in his historical legacy as president.
Biden has long made the argument that he would never interfere with the administration of justice, a particular cornerstone of his 2020 presidential campaign against Trump.
He also spent much of his time in office saying he would refrain from commenting on high-profile criminal cases, even related to his son, to ensure a level of independence between the executive branch and the Justice Department.
Political Gamesmanship?
In his statement, Biden struck a tone more similar to the arguments Trump has been making in recent years, saying “raw politics” had infected the prosecution of his son, leading to a “miscarriage of justice.”
Hageman doesn’t buy it.
“It is laughable to cite ‘raw politics’ as the cause of Hunter’s criminal prosecution while the DOJ has relentlessly persecuted Donald Trump for four years,” Hageman said. “Such a claim is also provably untrue — I cannot think of anyone in modern history who has been more corrupt than Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family, while being untouchable in terms of accountability.”
Hunter Biden struck a similarly defiant pose, saying his mistakes “have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.”
The president’s son pleaded guilty in September to nine federal tax charges after telling his legal team that he didn’t want to put his family through another trial. He had been scheduled for sentencing in mid-December.
The charges stemmed from a tumultuous five-year period in Hunter Biden’s life when he bankrolled his drug and alcohol addiction by leveraging his family name to earn lucrative overseas consulting contracts in addition to not paying his taxes.
This isn’t the first time a president has used his executive power to grant clemency to a family member.
On his last day in office, former President Bill Clinton pardoned his half brother Roger Clinton for prior cocaine charges. A month before leaving office, Trump pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father Charles Kushner for tax evasion and other crimes. Both Kushner and Clinton had already completed their prison terms by the time their pardons were issued.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
