In the aftermath of Sunday’s announcement by President Joe Biden that he has pardoned his convicted felon son of gun and tax law violations, a political earthquake has rocked the country and opened the floodgates for criticisms of the elitist double standard.
Public reaction has been overwhelmingly negative, and The Hill, among other media heavyweights, is making note of the fact that the president has done exactly what he promised he would not do. Biden’s critics, including President-elect Donald Trump, had predicted he would issue a pardon before leaving office.
Some analysts argue Joe Biden really has nothing to lose with this move. His own party literally pushed him aside in July, handing the campaign over to Vice President Kamala Harris, and it became a political disaster. Trump trounced her Nov. 5, winning not only 312 Electoral College votes but also the popular vote.
As CNN has reported since the Sunday pardon announcement, “By pardoning his son, Joe Biden has reneged on a public promise that he made repeatedly before and after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race. The president and his top White House spokesperson said unequivocally, including after Trump won the 2024 election, that he would not pardon Hunter Biden or commute his sentence.”
The firearms community was quick to react.
“This pardon is an affront to all the people who have been convicted and or served prison time for falsely filling out the same federal form that Hunter Biden did,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “Especially those who committed a non-violent crime as a young adult and were never told that they lost the right to own a gun and had no intention of lying.
“President Biden lied when he said he would not pardon his son Hunter,” Gottlieb added. “To use a famous quote from Biden himself, the President is ‘a lying dog face pony soldier.’”
Guns.com quoted Mark Oliva, public affairs director for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“Anyone who is surprised by this decision by President Joe Biden to grant clemency to his son, who was clearly in violation of federal law when he lied on the Form 4473, is either lying or delusional,” Oliva stated. “The Biden-Harris administration twisted the authority of the federal government to target the firearm industry for political reasons. President Biden used the levers of government to punish a lawful industry to satisfy the demands of special-interest gun control donors, and now he has unsurprisingly exercised his authority to allow his son to avoid justice. These are among the many reasons voters demanded a change that we in the firearm industry eagerly await on Jan. 20.”
Fox News is reporting that Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) declared, “You’ve been lied to every step of the way by this Administration and the corrupt Biden family. This is just the latest in their long coverup scheme. They never play by the same rules they force on everyone else. Disgraceful.”
Even President-Elect Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social, suggesting Biden should also pardon the Jan. 6 protesters.
“Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” Trump wondered. “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”
Emerging from the coverage is the acknowledgement that Joe Biden is a compulsive and habitual liar. Ammoland News is reporting how Biden has been called out several times by the Washington Post fact checker, earning a string of “four Pinocchio” designations, and Politifact has posted a lengthy list of the elder Biden’s canards.
Meanwhile, like others in the media, Politico is trying to do damage control by reporting, “Hunter Biden’s pardon looks a lot like Richard Nixon’s.”
No, it really doesn’t. Nixon—the only U.S. president in history to resign from office as a result of the Watergate scandal 50 years ago—had never been convicted of a federal felony, nor had he pleaded guilty to one. Hunter Biden, on the other hand, was convicted earlier this year of three federal gun law violations, all felonies. He lied on a federal Form 4473 about his use of illegal drugs at the time he purchased a Colt double-action revolver. He possessed the gun illegally. Later, he pleaded guilty to felony tax offenses, as noted by Fox News.
But what else has happened with this pardon? President Biden, since he is leaving office, will likely not have to face further questions about his involvement in his son’s business dealings while serving as vice president. Hunter Biden escapes any prison time for the crimes he committed, and by right of pardon, he regains his voting rights and Second Amendment rights.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY) posted a blistering statement condemning the president and the Biden family, which he contends is a criminal enterprise.
“Joe Biden has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities,” Rep. Comer wrote. “Not only has he falsely claimed that he never met with his son’s foreign business associates and that his son did nothing wrong, but he also lied when he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden. The charges Hunter faced were just the tip of the iceberg in the blatant corruption that President Biden and the Biden Crime Family have lied about to the American people. 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.”
The Hill also ran an opinion poll which asked readers, “Do you think President Biden’s arguments for why he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, are valid or not?”
Fifty-five percent of respondents said the president’s explanation is “Not at all valid.” Another 31 percent said the president’s reasoning was “Completely valid.” Nine percent believe Biden’s explanation is “Somewhat valid,” while 5 percent had no opinion or reached a different conclusion.
Here is the full text of President Biden’s pardon message:
“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. 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. 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. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.
“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.
“For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe 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.”
