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Trump transition live updates: President-elect raises prospect of pardons for Jan. 6 crimes

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Saul Loeb

If I were President Joe Biden, I would have done the same thing. I would have pardoned a son who faced possible federal prison time not because of the crimes he committed, but because of me.

The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/01/hunter-biden-pardon/" target=_blank>president’s decision</a> to absolve his son Hunter reneges on a campaign promise and can certainly be described as hypocritical. It creates a political problem for the Democratic Party and will be seen by many as a stain on Biden’s legacy. Obviously, Biden is prepared to accept those consequences. I would be, too.

In his statement on Sunday announcing the pardon, Biden got to the heart of the matter: “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.” This is clearly true. If a son of mine were being subjected to selective prosecution, and I had the power to make it all go away, that’s what I would do.

This isn’t about lying on a gun permit form or delinquency in paying taxes, the latter of which Hunter has admitted. It’s about fatherhood.

The word “troubled” appears in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/11/hunter-biden-life-indictments-charges/" target=_blank>almost anything written about Hunter</a>. Joe Biden watched his second son recover from injuries suffered in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/beau-biden-vice-presidents-son-dies-of-brain-cancer-at-46/2015/05/31/4198da78-07c6-11e5-9e39-0db921c47b93_story.html" target=_blank>1972 automobile accident</a> that killed Hunter’s mother and sister, fractured Hunter’s skull and injured his older brother Beau. The president, then a senator, took pride in Hunter’s early promise, as the young man graduated from Georgetown University and Yale Law School and then embarked on a career in finance.

Over the years, however, Joe Biden also witnessed Hunter’s restlessness as he briefly went into government in the Commerce Department during President Bill Clinton’s administration, then complicated his father’s life by becoming a lobbyist, then went back into finance, never really settling on a long-term path.

And the elder Biden watched Hunter try to live up to the impossibly high standard set by Beau: Syracuse University Law School, a Justice Department career, experience as a federal prosecutor, election to two terms as attorney general of Delaware and concurrent service in the Delaware Army National Guard, which included a 2008 combat deployment in Iraq for which he was awarded a Bronze Star. Many people predicted that Beau would be president someday. No one predicted the same about Hunter.

Then, in 2013, Beau <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/05/31/brain-cancers-like-beau-bidens-kill-about-15000-adults-each-year/" target=_blank>was diagnosed</a> with a deadly form of brain cancer. As Joe Biden watched his older son struggle with his illness, he watched his younger son struggle with his own demons — and could do nothing to help either.

By the time <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2015/05/30/e1ac5a2a-0731-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html" target=_blank>Beau died</a> nine years ago, Hunter’s life was a mess. He was deep in the throes of addiction to cocaine and alcohol. The most telling episode came in 2013, when, at age 42, he emulated Beau by joining the Navy Reserve. He was sworn in by his father, then vice president, at the White House — and then <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/10/16/report-bidens-son-discharged-from-navy-after-positive-cocaine-test/" target=_blank>discharged </a>shortly thereafter when a urine test detected the presence of cocaine.

Hunter was making money — often trading on his father’s name — but spending it like a fire hose on drugs and a wealthy drug abuser’s extravagant lifestyle. His personal relationships were chaotic, toxic and sordid. And his father was helpless to save him.

We all know what happened next. When <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> became president in 2016, and it became clear that Joe Biden could be his opponent in 2020, Republicans launched a campaign to destroy Biden politically through his association with his surviving son. A Justice Department special prosecutor and an endless congressional investigation produced clouds of smoke, at the heart of which was no fire: There was never any evidence that Joe Biden took any action as senator or vice president to benefit Hunter’s interests. The only money Republicans ever proved Joe Biden accepted from Hunter was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/04/comer-biden-impeachemtn-probe-hunter/" target=_blank>$4,140 in repayment for a car </a>that Hunter didn’t qualify to purchase because of his low credit rating.

Hunter did commit crimes, though, to which he has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-hunter-laptop-ba96537a686d04dc3773552cfa13deeb" target=_blank>pleaded guilty</a> in federal court. But his were not the kinds of crimes that usually get prosecuted. He is hardly the first drug addict to deny being a drug addict on a gun permit form; and he has paid his delinquent taxes, including penalties and interest. He was given this harsh treatment because he is Joe Biden’s son.

He might not have been sentenced to prison time. But with Trump returning to the White House and pledging to punish his political enemies, he faced new peril. It was not inconceivable that Trump would find an attorney general willing to conjure the smoke surrounding Hunter’s dealings with the Ukrainian firm Burisma — already dispelled by years of fruitless investigation — into some kind of new criminal indictment.

When Joe Biden promised not to pardon Hunter, he thought he’d never have to. Things have changed.

I can’t argue that pardoning Hunter was politically the right thing for the president to do. I’m not even sure it was morally the right thing for a president to do. But if my son were in Hunter’s position and I had the power, with the stroke of a pen, to save him and give him a fresh start, I’d do it. I believe many fathers would agree.

2009 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary

Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race (Free Press, 1999)

Last Dance in Havana: The Final Days of Fidel and the Start of the New Cuban Revolution (Free Press, 2004)

Eugene Robinson writes a column on politics and culture and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Washington Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section.

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With pardon of Hunter, President Biden chose to be a father first

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