A Political Theory of Relativity would dictate that what you see depends on where you sit. Where one sees Trump and his incoming cabinet as a modern-day incarnation of The Untouchables coming to take the crooked city down to the studs, others see such an endeavor as something worse than Watergate. It just depends on where you are sitting.
Kamala Harris spent more than $1 billion on her 100 day campaign and she still lost. That’s a lot of money to push out the door in such a short time, so where did all the money go? A clue lies in the revelation that the Harris campaign had donated $500,000 to Al Sharpton’s nonprofit ahead of a friendly interview.
While it is hard to imagine Sharpton ever doing an unfriendly interview with Kamala, there was a commonality of interest. She had the need to spend money that other people had given her and he liked to spend the money that other people gave him. In fact Sharpton has used his past as an inciter of antisemitic riots and racial hoaxes to good effect because he, like mobsters and politicians, understands that the difference between a donation and extortion depends on where you sit.
Then there is the news yesterday that Joe Biden, after repeated denials that he would ever do such a thing, pardoned his son Hunter. Well, on one hand you can understand Biden’s change of heart — after all, Hunter is his one surviving son, and as Joe wrote in his statement:
“Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process.”
All fair, right? Hunter was only pursued because he was Joe’s son, and since the process is the punishment, really Hunter has been punished enough. Don’t think so? Well depends on where you sit, and from where Joe sits this is his kid we’re talking about.
What’s curious is the actual text of the pardon:
“For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024 including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions) by Special Counsel David C. Weiss…”
Curious.
First of all, Hunter’s specific legal troubles dealt with tax and gun charges for which he was either convicted or pleaded guilty, a total of 12 counts. That’s public knowledge. Now we have a blanket pardon for anything he might have done whether anybody knew of it or not? It is ummm… highly irregular to not only pardon someone without a Justice Department advisory, or to pardon someone for crimes for which they have not even been indicted, let alone convicted, let alone pardoned for crimes of which no one is even aware. Biden just made a big deal that his son was being persecuted on charges that would never have been brought to trial if his last name was different, but now his son is off the hook for anything he might have done (federally) since 2014? Seems kind of broad. I mean, he could have been selling nuclear secrets to the Chinese since 2014, and according to the pardon he couldn’t even be indicted for not paying taxes on bribes.
Second, the time covered by the pardon stretches from 2014 through yesterday. However, the gun and tax charges — that Joe mentions in his statement as the reason for the pardon — deal with the period from 2016 to 2018.
Yet he has a blanket pardon. For crimes that aren’t even specified and that we don’t even know about. That were committed since 2014. Which was the year his father took over the Ukraine portfolio for the Obama Administration.
Perhaps that’s what the pardon is about. The gun and tax convictions? The sappy story about his son being “…selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” over those charges is just chaff meant to deflect attention that Joe and Hunter are covering their tracks over the corrupt pay-to-play scheme regarding foreign money. it wouldn’t be the first time Joe has brought out family misfortunes for political benefit
Remember that while Hunter’s crimes have been in the public eye since the Hunter laptop revelation in 2020, the FBI had been sitting on that same laptop since 2019.
The biggest corruption scandal in American history has just been buried, probably for good, and in large part thanks to the FBI. Is Patel taking over the FBI worse than Watergate? Depends on where you are sitting.
I am waiting for all those government lawyers who spent years of their lives prosecuting Hunter Biden to resign in disgust at this blatant political interference in their execution of the laws.
What about all those Democrat politicians who fought hard to establish the strict gun control laws which “Joe Biden” just made into mockery? I am waiting for them to move Articles of Impeachment against “Joe Biden” for undermining their hard-passed laws.
I will have to wait for a very long time. Because we all know that this open-ended pardon is really about covering up the Biden Crime Family’s exploitation of the US taxpayer using the Ukraine.
Keeping an eye on the various feeds, I notice a lot of talking points
The first is that this is no surprise, everyone expected Biden to do this and everyone knew he was lying when he said wouldn’t do it. I agree with that. I saw Raskin on CNN yesterday and he was making the same pitch that Biden did, that Hunter was being persecuted because of his last name. I see others joining in Eric Holder and other Democrats who were in DOJ.
Of course what no one of them mention is that if Hunter had a different last name he would be up on human trafficking and FARA charges, at a minimum.
The second is what this means as far as Trump and his willingness to pardon the Jan. 6 protesters. I had felt for a while that he would go through the cases and that at a minimum anyone who was not convicted of violence would get pardoned. Now I think everyone is going to assume he will do it.
Third, is really the near complete absence of discussion of the blanket pardon going back to 2014. Biden’s covering statement doesn’t match the pardon. The covering statement, as well as today’s dominant narrative, is that this about Hunter’s gun and tax convictions. However if that’s the case then why does the pardon cover a period several years before either of the two? Or for anything he did from 2014-2022? Hunter is now off the hook for any federal crime he might have committed for the past 10 years, not just guns and taxes.
Nobody finds this strange. It’s as if the gun and tax issues only exist as a secondary factor, to simply move the main plot forward which is to clean up ALL of Hunter’s shenanigans.
Fourth, besides the weirdness of the pardon language, pardoning for crimes nobody knows about, a friend mentioned that Biden bypassed the DoJ pardon attorney. On one hand, Biden can do that, but by doing that he has just acknowledged the existence of the unitary objective; that’s another precedent to watch as Trump takes office because he’s going to run roughshod over any Left’s claims that bureaucrats have any claim to check any legal use of his power. See the idea that he cannot replace Wray at the FBI because the guy has a 10-year term. All executive power lies within the presidency, there is no constitutional basis for anyone in the executive branch to say no to a legal order. Thanks for affirming that Joe.
Fifth, some speculation. Trump should ignore Biden once the latter leaves office, in fact he has promised to do so. Trump has too many other things to accomplish then get bogged down dealing with a has-been, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, However Trump should be scooping up and consolidating his winnings, First, as mentioned above, assert given what Biden just did his pardon power and the unitary executive. Second, start mentioning by name and mock (as only he can) those in the media and formally in the Democrats who have been dishonest about all of this. This is an excellent time to keep those guys back on their heels especially with confirmation hearings coming up in 5 to 6 weeks. Right now this is sucking all the oxygen out of the room as far as trying to stop his nominees.
there were 150 SARs from Romania, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, I think I left one out, the mark of a corrupted (lesuo) regime,
Mike: “The covering statement, as well as today’s dominant narrative, is that this about Hunter’s gun and tax convictions. However if that’s the case then why does the pardon cover a period several years before either of the two? Or for anything he did from 2014-2022?”
If one has become as cynical as the Democrat Party has made me, then the obvious suspicion is that someone in the Inner Party recognized that Hunter was a time-bomb waiting to go off. Consequently, the “Joe Biden” Department of Justice was directed to find some charges on which Hunter could be found guilty — no problem doing that, since there are so many laws now that we are all guilty of something. The aim was to provide, if necessary, an excuse for issuing a decade-long blanket pardon for unmentioned crimes in order to prevent Hunter from being squeezed into admitting his part in a much wider corruption circle involving the Ukraine.
Now that Hunter is pardoned, could he be forced to testify against the other members of Biden, Inc.? He can’t incriminate himself and any perjury would be an offense not covered by the pardon.
MCS
Eugene Volokh has some thoughts on whether Hunter can be made to testify
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/12/02/can-the-just-pardoned-hunter-biden-claim-privilege-against-self-incrimination-if-questioned-about-his-crimes/
Executive actions I’d like to see from Trump:
Day 1:
Pardon all the J6’ers.
Appoint special prosecutors to investigate the deaths of Ashlee Babbit and Rosanne Boyland.
Release all J6 material.
Appoint an inspector general to investigate all NIH and CDC funding of viral research outside the United States.
Plus another hundred I haven’t thought of.
Hunter Biden is such an degenerate scumbag, I wonder that anyone can stand to be in the same room with him, unless they had something to gain out of the association.
I am sure there are lots of other laws that he had broken, anyway.
A question for the legal beagles: Since Hunters been pardoned for every-frigging-thing he did during that 2014-2024 time period, is it thus true that he cannot refuse to answer questions about what he did and with whom by claiming that making any such requested statements about his knowledge of activities during that period are self incriminating?
So if a new-DoJ agent were to ask Hunter “What did you do and with whom? Please be specific. Here’s a pen and paper.” after today, as part of trying to build cases to nail the people with whom Hunter did what he did, that questioning being outside the time span of his pardon, would he be compelled to reply? If he did not reply truthfully, that’s Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code, right? What if his lawyer replied on his behalf that he would not answer so as to not self-incriminate, which given the pardon is false on its face, what then?
I mean obviously he’d say he does not recall being a drug fiend and all. But surely he was testifying just recently (oh wait, false testimony in that trial is covered too) that he was not in fact a drug fiend all the time and so was not lying right at the exact moment he signed his Form 4473, so must remember something. ANd what about other records and communications – they could not possibly incriminate him as he is beyond incrimination thanks to Joe.
The guy was the hub of the Biden Criminal Enterprise, and now he cannot claim 5th amendment protections since he no longer has any legal jeopardy for what he knows. Surely this matters.
FM: “… is it thus true that he cannot refuse to answer questions about what he did and with whom …”
We have already seen how the Demonrat Inner Party handles such awkwardness. Surely we have not forgotten Hillary! Clinton under oath repeatedly saying “I do not recall”? Hunter may get mocked in certain quarters for remembering nothing — absolutely nothing! — but CNN will remind their last few viewers that he was (is?) a brain-addled drug addict. It is no surprise he has no recollection of anything between 2014 and 2024.
I figured that thought would occur to somebody that actually knows something. A conjecture I’ve made here before is that poor little Hunter cut a pretty wide swath, what are the chances that he did something felonious at the state level in a state like Texas or Florida where there would be less tendency to sweep it under the rug? The pardon only covers Federal crimes.
There’s supposed to be 200GB of dirt on that laptop.
Didn’t Anthony Wiener also have a laptop? And how about the server Hillary wiped with a cloth? And of course the Epstein blackmail material the FBI gathered up when it raided his mansion- what happened to all that? And who killed Seth Rich, btw?
Joe Biden pardoning Hunter is the least surprising event ever, like the sun rising everyday or Democrats cheating in elections. Watching various flunkies pretend to be surprised- or worse for them actually being surprised- is quite amusing.
The interesting question is what other pardons are being prepared? If Hunter can be pardoned for crimes …which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in… why can’t Joe simply issue a vast swarm of pardons for every single demonrat official going back decades for any crime they have committed or may have committed since the dawn of time? Perhaps like the crimes recorded by Epstein and Anthony Wiener, etc?
Or failing that, how about if he pardons the few dozen minions most likely to be damaging to the regime if they were removed from power by prosecution or perhaps be inclined to testify against the Deep State if threatened with such a fate?
There appears to be a good amount of outrage about this particular pardon, as there should be. Will there be much outage when an obscure figure few people have heard of gets a pardon for unknown reasons for crimes no one suspects?
I hope, because the implication should be obvious. But I also recall that Bill Clinton and his media allies were able to turn a long list of high crimes and misdemeanors into a simple scandal about consensual sex.
We should not let the left get away with similarly turning an longer list of crimes committed by even more people into an endless recitation of complaints against Joe Biden for pardoning his criminal son.
I believe that Eugene Volokh already covers this, but here’s Dershowitz’ take:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14154347/hunter-biden-pardon-backfire-alan-dershowitz.html
My unqualified opinion is that Volokh is right and Hunter can invoke the 5th Amendment as long as there is any plausible jeopardy of state charges. No one at the federal level can grant immunity from state charges.
“The aim was to provide, if necessary, an excuse for issuing a decade-long blanket pardon for unmentioned crimes in order to prevent Hunter from being squeezed into admitting his part in a much wider corruption circle involving the Ukraine.”
I like your point and at the very least, if not by initial legal strategy than through the use of the pardon language, the gun-tax case allows the rest of Hunter’s misdeed to get covered-up
I’m a little late to this party but I’ll leave this here anyways. For me, the real kick in the pants is getting away with the tax stuff. I own a business and pay a LOT of tax dollars, withholding and all the rest and get audited by all sorts of governmental organizations all the time, and have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to my accountants to work through these painstaking audits. It’s just part of being in business. If we made a mistake we have to pay, or I go to jail. Hunter did all of the things wrong and hey, no big deal. Disgusting.
Dan: “If we made a mistake we have to pay, or I go to jail.”
To think that our forefathers put their lives on the line for the concept of “… Justice for All”. Now we openly have a different kind of “Justice” for those connected to the Inner Party — and about half of Americans seem to be OK with this. It will not end well.
Biden is supposed to be considering preemptive pardons for Fauci, Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff:
https://nypost.com/2024/12/04/us-news/biden-white-house-mulls-pre-emptive-pardons-for-fauci-schiff-and-cheney-report/
While Cheney and Schiff are execrable, I doubt they’ve actually violated any laws. Fauci may have helped instigate the gain of function research that gave us covid and violated an explicit ban then lied about it under oath. Not likely he could get half what he deserves but spending the rest of his life in jail is better than nothing.
Such pardons would go a long way to eliminating whatever credibility the government has left.