Updates
From The Atlantic, link here.
The lede:
President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is a done deal. The president has not only obviated the existing cases against Hunter; the sweep of the pardon effectively immunizes his son against prosecution for all federal crimes he may have committed over the course of more than a decade. This pardon is a terrible idea—“both dishonorable and unwise,” in the words of the Bulwark editor Jonathan Last—and, as my colleague Jonathan Chait wrote yesterday, it reflected Biden’s choice “to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.
”But it was also a tremendous strategic blunder, one that will haunt Democrats as they head into the first years of another Trump administration.
The Constitution vests American presidents with the power to pardon anyone for crimes against the United States. (They cannot pardon people for offenses at the state level.) Usually, such pardons involve clemency for ordinary criminals; occasionally, they include distasteful personal or political favors to friends, allies, and in rarer cases, family. Donald Trump, however, has promised to start the process of issuing deeply controversial pardons the minute he gets into office.
Perhaps most disturbing, he has said he’s going to start reviewing cases of the January 6 insurrectionists—whom he has called “warriors” and “hostages”—and to let many of them out of prison. Nothing will stop Trump from doing such things, nor will he pay any political price for such future pardons: All he ever cared about was winning the White House to stay out of jail, and he’s accomplished that mission.
But the Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump World, and had Biden not pardoned his son, elected Republicans at every level would have had to answer for Trump’s actions without reference to the Bidens. They would have had to say, on the record, whether they agreed with Trump letting people who stormed the Capitol and assaulted law-enforcement officers out of jail. Although Trump would have remained beyond the reach of the voters, the vulnerable Republicans running for reelection might have pleaded with him to avoid some of the more potentially disgusting pardons.
Original Post
So, this is how it ends?
Headlines:
I'm waiting for the following to weigh in, we'll hear tomorrow:
- Bill Maher,
- Joe Rogan,
- Joe Scarborough
