Joe Biden’s pardon reversal reflects family loyalty over legacy
CNN
In the end, President Joe Biden acted as a father.
In the end, President Joe Biden acted as a father. The decision to issue a blanket pardon for his son Hunter will forever be a part of the president’s legacy. Across an extraordinary five decades in public life, with a long rise from the Senate to the Oval Office, his Sunday night declaration puts an exclamation point – and a question mark – on Biden’s tenure in a changing era of American politics. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden said in the closing words of a statement issued by the White House. It came at the end of a Thanksgiving holiday during which he reached a final decision on his plan to pardon his oldest son after spending the weekend together in Nantucket. For Biden, family has long come above nearly everything. His relentless pledge to not pardon his son was delivered before he stepped away from running for a second term, so it remained an open question – despite White House denials – whether he would uphold his promise or choose to protect his son from any forthcoming punishment from President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. Time was running out for the president to make his decision. Hunter Biden faced a sentencing hearing on December 12 for his conviction on federal gun charges and was also scheduled to be sentenced in a separate criminal case on December 16, after pleading guilty in September on federal tax evasion charges. “I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making,” the president said in his statement, “and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
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