The BDN Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom, and does not set policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Hunter Biden has been convicted of gun-related crimes and pleaded guilty to multiple tax evasion charges. He awaits sentencing as the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a crime.
While he waits, his father, President Joe Biden, holds a constitutional get-out-of-jail free card with the ability to pardon his own son. It would be within the elder Biden’s legal ability to spare his son any time in jail.
He must not do so. It would be yet another blow for accountability and the equal application of law.
Joe Biden the father surely wants to help his son, whose questionable business dealings and very public challenges with drug use have culminated with these historic legal woes.
Joe Biden the president must stay true to his word that he will not pursue a pardon in his son’s case, and stay true to the principle that there are consequences for people’s actions regardless of who they are or what prominent offices their family members may hold.
The president said in June that he would not pardon his son. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked again earlier this month if Biden planned to pardon his son.
“We’ve been asked that question multiple times and our answer stands — which is no,” she said, as reported by CBS News.
Make no mistake, we face an accountability crisis in this country. Hunter Biden is not the only one who has made inglorious history when it comes to criminality in the orbit of the presidency.. A majority of voters have decided that the first-ever former president convicted of a crime should be president again. A majority of Supreme Court justices have concerningly given the presidency near-immunity for actions taken in office. The decision by voters this November is already further insulating President-elect Donald Trump from accountability as other criminal prosecutions he has been facing are wrapping up.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to shutter the classified document and election interference cases against Trump, while reflective of Trump’s forthcoming return to the White House and in line with the U.S. Justice Department’s longtime holding that a sitting president can’t be charged with a crime, carries the undeniable and unfortunate message that some people in fact are above the law. Despite the insistence of some, it should be stressed that these dismissals are not factual vindications of Trump and his alleged actions, but procedural technicalities. The prosecutions are wrapping up, not because Trump has been exonerated, but because he has been elected.
There is a strong perception, cutting across political ideologies, that people in power get to play by a different set of rules. The current political backdrop, particularly Trump’s return to the presidency, begs a fundamental question: Can some Americans escape consequences for less than virtuous actions simply by virtue of their last name or the office that they hold?
The people have spoken and are sending Trump back to the White House. There is nothing Biden can do about that, just as he cannot control how Trump uses the power of the presidency. But he can choose not to act like Trump while he still holds that power himself.
Biden must resist any urge or encouragement — and there has been encouragement — to embrace the self-serving, hard power approach that Trump so often espouses.
The temptation would be understandable. After all, didn’t voters embrace this more cynical approach by choosing Trump in November’s election? And sure, Biden must harbor some bitterness for the pressure he faced, and acquiesced, to drop out of the presidential race earlier this year. Why put the system over family when the system has left him behind, Biden might be asking himself.
If his legacy and commitment to public service is to remain intact, however, he must not further fuel the perception that well-connected people follow different rules than everyone else, or that political promises carry little weight.
Biden must stand by his word and the word of others in his administration. There must be no pardon, and no commutation, for Hunter Biden.
America has leaned into a cynical political landscape beset by self-serving decisions. Biden can make things a little better by swimming against the tide, or he can make them a lot worse by giving in to the current. As a father, he can continue to stand by his son with love and support. As a president, he should stand by his country and remind everyone that no one should be above the law.
