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

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“For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth,” President Joe Biden said in <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/12/01/statement-from-president-joe-biden-11/" target="_blank">his statement</a> Sunday night explaining his decision to issue a sweeping pardon to his son Hunter.

Except, it turns out, the president didn’t tell the truth. When it mattered politically, when it could have had adverse electoral consequences, Biden assured the American people, repeatedly, that he would not use the pardon power on his son’s behalf. When skeptics tried to probe for loopholes — would he commute the sentence rather than issue a pardon? — Biden insisted: No pardon, no commutation.

Biden didn’t have to make that pledge then, but he did. Anyone who believed him then looks like a chump now. His failure to even acknowledge this reversal, no less explain or apologize for it, adds insult to injury. Where’s the simple principle of truth-telling now?

As a human being, I get it. Every parent wants to shield their child from harm — especially harm for which they are in some way responsible. Here, I agree with the president: Hunter Biden wasn’t prosecuted because of what he did but because of who his father is. Imagine the burden of guilt that a loving parent shoulders in that circumstance, and there is no doubt about how deeply the president loves his family. How can you have the power to pardon your child under these circumstances and not use it?

So, my gripe is not with the pardon itself. Some presidential pardons of family members — Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> pardoned his son-in-law’s father Charles Kushner, now tapped to be ambassador to France — have come about only because of the luck of the relationship. Yes, they were pardoned after serving their sentences, as is usually required. But another person without those family ties wouldn’t have been granted clemency.

Hunter Biden was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/06/11/hunter-biden-verdict-gun-trial/" target=_blank>convicted in June</a> on three felony charges involving his lying on federal gun-purchasing paperwork about his drug use and illegally possessing a gun. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/05/hunter-biden-alford-guilty-plea-taxes/" target=_blank>He pleaded guilty</a> in September to nine federal charges stemming from his failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. Sentencing in both cases was scheduled for later this month, and the tax case in particular exposed him to the threat of significant prison time, up to 17 years.

Neither of these cases should have gone as far as they did. “Addict in possession” gun cases are not often brought as stand-alone charges, absent other, serious misconduct. Hunter Biden had the gun for all of 11 days and never used it. The tax charges stemmed from a period when he was suffering from a serious drug problem; two years before the charges were filed, he repaid the taxes owed plus associated interest and penalties. Far more serious and willful tax offenses have been settled without resorting to criminal charges.

But Hunter Biden was an attractive target for his father’s political opponents; more precisely, he made himself an attractive target with unsavory consulting arrangements that traded on the family name. Those deals, though, didn’t yield criminal charges, and the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, was left with the gun and tax cases. Those should have been resolved by a plea agreement under which Hunter Biden would have been sent to a pretrial diversion program, but when Republican members of Congress erupted over what they called a sweetheart plea deal, Weiss proved too weak to resist the pressure. As the president said in his statement, his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”

There are reasons to be queasy about this pardon. Justice Department regulations specify waiting at least five years after a sentence is served to grant a pardon — not issuing it preemptively. (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-presidential-pardons-serve-himself-not-justice/2018/05/31/79e38ee6-651a-11e8-99d2-0d678ec08c2f_story.html" target=_blank>Trump departed</a> from this <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-pardons-former-arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio/2017/08/25/afbff4b6-86b1-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html" target=_blank>norm in pardoning</a> former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio before his sentencing for contempt of court.)

In addition, the Biden pardon is particularly — close to unprecedentedly — sweeping: The president didn’t pardon his son for only the gun and tax crimes, but for all “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in,” from Jan. 1, 2014, the year Hunter Biden joined the board at Ukrainian energy company Burisma, through Dec. 1, 2024. Shades of Gerald Ford here: His pardon of Richard M. Nixon extended similarly to any offenses during the course of Nixon’s presidency.

Under the circumstances, these departures are justified. If the prosecution was unfair, clemency is warranted now, before any sentence is served. And given Trump’s announced zeal to go after political opponents — “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of America, Joe Biden, and go after the Biden crime family,” he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/14/vance-trump-attorney-general-justice-garland/" target=_blank>vowed in June 2023</a> — it is not unreasonable to extend a broad scope of protection to Hunter Biden.

That leaves the president’s about-face. A source familiar with Biden’s thinking about pardons described an “evolution” in the president’s views in which he became increasingly convinced that the criminal justice system could not be relied on to treat Hunter Biden fairly. Sorry, but when the White House press secretary said as recently as Nov. 7 — after the election — that Biden had no intention of pardoning his son, that explanation is less than convincing.

At this point, Biden is a diminished figure. His power wanes by the day. Attention has moved on. There is not much difference he can make on the world stage in the time that remains to him. But in his role as what Alexander Hamilton called “the dispenser of the mercy of government,” Biden retains the unfettered ability to protect his son.

And so he did. I can understand that, and support it. What I cannot support — what is unpardonable — is being lied to and then gaslighted about Biden the truth-teller. “I give you my word as a Biden,” the president likes to say. What’s that worth now?

Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for commentary, 2007

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Ruth Marcus is an associate editor and columnist for The Post.

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Biden pardoned Hunter after saying he wouldn’t. That’s unpardonable. 

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