President Joe Biden is considering issuing broad pre-emptive pardons for individuals who might be targeted by President-elect Trump’s administration in retaliation for their involvement in his criminal cases. Biden recently issued an unconditional pardon for his son, Hunter, stating that he believed he had been unfairly targeted by political opponents. During his presidential campaign, Biden firmly stated that he would not pardon Hunter or commute his sentence for charges related to firearm possession and tax evasion.
In the video above, Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman acknowledges that while he opposes Biden’s reversal and use of presidential powers to aid family, he sees it as understandable given the risks of a Trump presidency targeting adversaries.
The following is an excerpt from the above video:
It’s not even totally clear to me that, on balance, presidential pardon powers are a good thing. I can find instances where they were used in ways that I agree with, and many in which they were used in ways that I disagree with. When Joe Biden said: “I will not pardon Hunter,” I thought that was the right thing to say, and it was the right thing to do, and I still believe that.
At the same time, something critical has changed since Joe Biden made that statement, which is that Donald Trump ran a campaign on revenge, retribution and punishment of his political adversaries. He has specifically targeted and been adversarial and hostile to Joe Biden and his family, including Hunter Biden and he has nominated —Trump has — people to positions of power who have made it clear they will go after Biden and his family.
Once you see if you are Joe Biden Kash Patel nominated as FBI director, we don’t know if he’ll be confirmed, but he has the potential to be confirmed, Someone who has made it clear that it is retribution and revenge, including against Biden’s family, that should be the policy of the forthcoming administration.
Any father would do what Biden did. This doesn’t mean that pardon powers are designed to pardon your family and friends. This doesn’t mean that I want to see more of this, but I do understand it, and the critical part is that we on the left at least have a basis to honestly discuss this, but these right-wingers who support Trump, who are now upset with Biden’s pardon, Trump has done the same thing many times over, and not with people that their your political adversary said they would target.
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