WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- President Joe Biden’s expansive pardon for his son Hunter Biden Dec. 1 brought strong reaction from Catholic political observers and lawmakers alike, including criticism from Republicans and some members of Biden’s own Democratic Party.
Some also defended President Biden’s action as support for Hunter, his only surviving son, since the 2015 death of his eldest, Beau Biden, and cited concern about his fate under the new Trump administration.
But commentators also pointed out every U.S. president has broad authority to issue pardons and commutations for federal crimes.
Biden’s pardon marked a reversal of his previous statements that he would not do so. The move comes as allies of President-elect Donald Trump have indicated they would seek to prosecute political rivals as revenge for criminal prosecutions of the former president.
“Every president has the right to issue pardons and commutations,” Robert Schmuhl, professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, who critically observes the modern American presidency, told OSV News.
“In this case, President Biden’s action overturns what he said in the past: That he wouldn’t issue a pardon to his son,” he said. “The hypocrisy of the decision is not only telling but also troubling.”
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., wrote on X, “President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is, as the action of a loving father, understandable -- but as the action of our nation’s Chief Executive, unwise.”
The pardon spares the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions, with his sentencing previously set for later this month.
In a statement confirming the pardon, Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president, said, “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
Biden argued it was “clear that Hunter was treated differently” than others facing similar charges.
“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,” Biden said, adding, “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. There has been an effort to break Hunter -- who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me -- and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
Biden, who previously pledged not to pardon his son, said he “wrestled with this,” but he believes “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice -- and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
Schmuhl noted it is not without precedent for a president to issue pardons to their relatives, pointing to President Bill Clinton’s pardon of his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, in his final days in office in 2001. Then-President Trump also issued a pardon of Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was convicted in 2005 of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Trump has said he intends to nominate the elder Kushner as U.S. ambassador to France for his second term.
Paul Nolette, an associate professor and director of the Washington office of Marquette University’s Les Aspin Center for Government, told OSV News that “the pardon power allows the president a great deal of authority, and there’s very few checks on that authority at all.”
“This is one of the rare areas that you’ll see in constitutional law where there’s really no limitation” on the president’s ability to pardon federal crimes, he said.
“So in other words, the president can’t pardon somebody based upon state law crimes; a governor might be able to do that and use his or her pardon power, but that’s at the state level. But as far as the federal law goes, the president’s authority is very, very wide,” he added.
Other elements that factored into Biden’s decision may have been the younger Biden’s looming sentencing hearing, as well as some of those Trump has indicated he will nominate to administration posts, Nolette said. Trump has indicated he intends to nominate his longtime ally Kash Patel to lead the FBI, who has previously called for using the power of the FBI and the Justice Department to prosecute journalists as well as Trump’s political opponents.
“All of these picks signal that Trump is going to pick, as he has, loyalists for his various positions, but also (people who) will be very willing to go after perceived enemies,” Nolette said.
Richard W. Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News that while it remains to be seen what the impact of the pardon will be, “it seems likely that critics of President Biden, and supporters of President-elect Trump, will point to the president’s claims that his son was targeted for political reasons as support for their own view that President Biden used federal prosecutions to target his political opponents.”
“And, if President-elect Trump uses the pardon power in controversial ways, he and his supporters will, no doubt, point to the pardon of Hunter Biden,” Garnett said.
President Biden’s Republican critics blasted the move. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., one of the lawmakers who spearheaded a congressional investigation into Biden’s family, argued the evidence against Hunter Biden was “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“It’s unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability,” Comer said on X, formerly Twitter.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., wrote on X, “President Biden’s decision put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.”
Others defended the decision. Meghan Hays, Democratic strategist and former senior communications aide to Biden, said during an appearance on CNN, “I think that some of these nominations that Trump has been putting forward and leaving this in the hands of other folks, I think is worrisome to the president.” Hays added, “He, again, does not want to lose another son,” a reference to Beau Biden’s death in 2015.
Schmuhl said the pardon will be one of many factors in President Biden’s legacy.
“Joe Biden said one thing and did the opposite,” he said. “A father’s love meant more to the president than keeping his word.”
Catholic activists are seeking a number of actions from Biden in his final days in office, including calling on him to commute existing death sentences of federal prisoners.
