President Biden’s hypocrisy on full display: Pardons his own son after making a point about ‘independent’ justice"

In a move that’s being hailed as a “full and unconditional” pardon, President Joe Biden has announced that he’s granting his son Hunter Biden a free pass for all federal charges related to his time between 2014-2024. Just 50 days before leaving office, Biden had previously declared that he wouldn’t be making the move, stating he’d abide by the jury’s decision. But now, it seems he was just playing a different tune.

TL;DR

President Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was facing up to 25 years in prison for lying on a federal form about his drug addiction. This comes after months of saying he wouldn’t make the move, and is being met with criticism from politicians and others who called him out on his earlier stance. A case of “my family is more important than I am” - how about keeping your promises for once?

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56 points

I think he’s concerned Trumps DOJ is going to come after them. Still super shady. But that’d be my guess as to why he did it, beyond the whole, he’s my kid thing.

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31 points

Should be illegal to pardon family members honestly. If there was ever an easy example of a conflict of interest, this is one.

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73 points

You mean like Ivanka’s father-in-law who Trump pardoned and named ambassador to France?

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40 points

For Biden, it was the most difficult decision of his presidency. For Trump, it was Tuesday.

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24 points

Yep, absolutely. Presidential powers should be used for the good of the country, not the good of your friends and family. There are many legitimate reasons to pardon people but them being related to you is not one of them.

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12 points

Exactly.

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7 points

You mean like how Trump is about to pardon himself?

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6 points

So what? Maybe it should be but it isn’t. The Constitution places virtually no limitation on the Presidents ability to offer clemency and no one in the last 250 years or so has seen fit to amend the constitution to change that despite the fact that the Republicans have been abusing the power of the pardon since at least the Reagan years. Now you are complaining because a Democratic President has used it *appropriately *to pardon someone who was convicted in a politically motivated circus?

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1 point

What’s your point? If you break the law, you should be treated like everybody else, not pardoned by the president. It’s a bullshit ability that should be taken away from the president.

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1 point

If this was a thread the last time the power was used to pardon friends or family I would be saying the same thing. This instance is not special because of the person who is in office. All instances have been wrong, unless there’s a real justification beyond a personal connection.

Dumpy may be expected to do shitty things in service to himself, his family and his associates but that doesn’t make it right. I believe rules and laws should apply to everybody, not just because they are on one party or another or believe one way or another or are of one socioeconomic status or another.

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3 points

I’d say make it illegal to pardon people who committed crimes to protect you (Ollie North, half Trump’s advisors) first.

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3 points

Too bad the judges that would decide that are bought and paid for

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1 point

With how lawmaking works I would say do both at the same time. It would take a constitutional amendment so it’s unlikely to ever happen unfortunately.

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