Pardon Me
link: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/01/politics/hunter-biden-joe-biden-pardon/index.html
By now we all know that the defining event of Joe Biden’s troubled presidency was the 11th hour and 45th minute of his regime; that is the revelation of the list of people being granted the Presidential pardon. Biden’s action is hardly unique in history as every parting President has granted such courtesies at the end of their tenure.
However, Biden’s list is a bit different than all previous pardons. Doing his best Oprah Winfrey imitation, he granted a total of over 2500 presidential pardons, essentially declaring, “and you get a pardon and you get a pardon”. He tossed them out like nauseating accolades at the Oscars.
In total, Biden pardoned or commuted over 2500 individuals from their transgressions. Upon performing this fact check on Bing Copilot, even this AI platform commented that “this seems a lot, don’t you think?” In fact, these pardons are the most ever in US history. Among those pardoned were family members; not unprecedented given that Bill Clinton and Donald Trump did the same for their relatives when they were leaving office.
What was most interesting this time however was that he gave pre-emptive pardons to a large list of people who could be in trouble in the future, including of course, his entire family. As far as anyone knows, this has never happened before and I’m sure the brilliant legal machinery will argue over its legality. It’s essentially a blanket ‘get out of jail free’ card. Even though the named individuals including Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Mark Miley and Anthony Fauci are not currently under any indictment or yet in prison, they have been given a federal immunity card; just in case. Nothing says you’re probably guilty than to require a shield of immunity from future legal culpability.
When you research the criteria for presidential pardons, there are supposedly guidelines on who may be eligible. I wouldn’t get all excited over legal agreement on this since they’re still fighting over what a man or a woman is. Suffice to say, the President has enormous latitude on who he excuses from legal punishment. The left leaning website, “Protect Democracy” wrote in 2020 when President Trump was leaving the top office:
“…In practice, as president, Trump also supercharged abuses of the pardon power, twisting a power intended to serve the public interest into a tool for self-dealing. As a Washington Post investigation of all clemency acts during his tenure concluded: “Never before had a president used his constitutional clemency powers to free or forgive so many people who could be useful to his future political efforts.” This included a record number of pardons for white-collar criminals who would go on to provide political and financial support to the former president…”
We won’t hold our breath waiting for their snarky commentary on Biden’s phone book list of pardonees.
The implication of this pre-emptive pardon is clear. If this stands, it will give any future president a tool in which to oppress and terrorize citizens without exposing their foot-soldiers to any culpability. If means that there is no rein on what political acts can be performed even and including treasonous acts and conspiracies against citizens.
According to the Supreme Court, the pardon power is intended as a tool for justice and mercy (an “act of grace”) and to further “the public welfare.” As one federal court has held: “The President, who exercises that power as the elected representative of all the People, must always exercise it in the public interest.” It will be amusing to see how the pre-emptive pardoning of people yet to be charged with a crime is in the public interest.