While some have criticized President Joe Biden's pardon for his son Hunter, it has drawn anger and ridicule from critics on the right and left. But commentator Glenn Greenwald highlighted one advantage for the president.
Not only did he protect his son Hunter from a prison sentence, he also protected himself.
Greenwald explained the reason. In the same year that Mr. Hunter was traveling the world, lining his pockets with money from sources in China, Ukraine and Romania, the senior Biden was in a position to distribute those profits. That's what at least one email found on Hunter Biden's laptop said.
President Biden thus protected himself from possible prosecution for financial crimes.
No mercy, no mercy, no mercy
Mr. Greenwald opened the system update by saying that Mr. Biden, his press secretary, and media-trained poodles had repeatedly assured the American people for months that Mr. Biden would not pardon Mr. Hunter. He pointed out that. The woman had been convicted of income tax crimes and lying on federal forms needed to purchase guns.
“Over the past year, we have condemned Joe Biden, as one of the most honorable men in the United States, if not one of the most honorable men in the world, to carry out the most extreme, embarrassing and chilling acts. I've heard the compliments, which is evidenced by his firm and steadfast refusal to forgive even his own son, as proof of how much he respects the role of the law and how much he values American norms. Please,” Greenwald said.
As The New American reported, Mr. Biden and his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, have repeatedly said that Mr. Hunter is not eligible for a pardon. Biden told ABC News' pro-Biden reporter David Muir that he wouldn't do that, but Pierre refused six times. “No,” she said again in July 2023. And she said it multiple times.
“So, I've answered this question before. I was asked just recently, a few weeks ago, and I said a resounding no,” she said in September.
“Nothing has changed,” she assured the White House press corps last December.
She repeated the claim three times this year, including on Nov. 7, when a reporter asked her about the pardon, following President-elect Donald Trump's bashing of Vice President Kamala Harris two days earlier.
“We've been asked that question many times. Our answer is no,” Jean-Pierre said.
excuse
But beyond the obvious lie that Biden, Jean-Pierre, the Democratic Party, and Biden's media megaphone told in granting the pardon, his excuse was that his own Justice Department had wrongly prosecuted Hunter. When Trump makes such a claim, it is understandably met with ridicule.
“The charges in his case only arose after several of my political opponents in Congress attacked me and incited me to contest my election,” Biden said.
A carefully negotiated plea deal agreed to by the Justice Department then unraveled in court, with many political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure to the process. Had a plea deal been reached, Hunter's case would have been resolved fairly and reasonably.
“Dedicated to the rule of law”
While the Democratic Party's “core campaign strategy” ensures Trump's imprisonment, “we must recognize what President Biden's honor has forever demonstrated: how committed he was to the rule of law. “Rather than undermine the noble principles of the rule of law, we should allow our only surviving son, Hunter Biden, to go to prison,” Greenwald said. he said.
The Democratic Party, the “guardian of everything decent about American political life,” said it would never pardon Hunter even if Biden or Harris lost the Nov. 5 election.
Mr. Greenwald pointed out that the Justice Department's plea deal with Mr. Hunter was so lenient that the trial judge did not accept it and prosecutors withdrew it, and Mr. Biden He said that Americans had repeatedly heard that they could not be pardoned. “This is something only Donald Trump and the Republican Party are doing,” Greenwald said. And only Republicans “accuse the justice system of being politicized when someone is accused or convicted of a crime.”
Instead, Democrats “have faith in the justice system,” Greenwald continued, gleaned from the pardon itself. That means prosecutors went after Hunter because he's Joe Biden's son, and they went after him by Biden's Republican opponents.
Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere in the decision-making of the Department of Justice, and I kept that promise even as I watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted.
But that argument — selective and unwarranted prosecutions — is exactly what Biden and Democrats say is the danger of Trump's presidency.
But “we are told that what is so dangerous about Trump and his movement is that they attack the integrity of our institutions; they attack our sacred “We accuse the Department of Justice of being selective in its prosecutions and of politicizing its prosecutorial power, thereby unfairly criticizing the incredible men and women who serve the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the United States national security state.” Greenwald said.
And yet here we have Joe Biden criticizing his own Justice Department for selectively and unfairly prosecuting his son Hunter, which is exactly what the Trump movement is said to be doing. , and that's what makes him so dangerous.
Biden defended himself.
The problem with Biden's Hunter pardon is not just its hypocrisy, Greenwald continued. The president pardoned the Boy Wonder not only for the crimes he was convicted of, but for any crimes he committed or may have committed between 2014 and 2024.
This is “probably the most sweeping pardon issued in decades, if not in U.S. history,” Greenwald said.
The last few years have seen Hunter Biden sit on the board of the energy company Burisma and explain what he was doing when he was “profiteering from his father's influence when he was vice president in charge of Ukraine.” This question is extremely important for amnesty. Zero qualifications. ”
This position led to a plan to extend Biden and Burisma's influence, including a plan that included then-Vice President Joe Biden telling Ukraine that if he did not fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma, he would receive U.S. loans. The demands included forfeiting $1 billion in guarantees. Prosecutors were investigating the company that paid Hunter for corruption.
And there was Hunter's activity in China, Greenwald continued. “Memos and witnesses said Joe Biden would have been a participant in interest.” One witness said Hunter's His colleague, Tony Bobulinski, called Joe Biden a “big guy” in an email explaining how profits from a deal with Chinese energy company CEFC would be divided. The “big guy” would get 10 percent.
The Biden mafia feared that these revelations from Hunter's famous laptop would help Trump defeat Biden just before the 2020 election, but “Then the CIA is Russian disinformation.'' I lied.” This refers to the 51 former intelligence officials who paid shillings for Biden. They knew the laptop was not Russian disinformation, as then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe stated.
The senior Biden was involved in Hunter's far-reaching business empire, which included at least some self-dealing — about $24 million funneled to the Biden Mafia — bribery and influence, both federal crimes. Although it is not a case of power smuggling, it means that the benefits of the amnesty will also spread to the nation. The outgoing president.
“In other words, this pardon not only protects my son from the conviction to which he has pleaded guilty and is about to be sentenced,” Greenwald asserted.
This protects him from any crimes aimed at peddling or affecting trade in Ukraine and China, and there is evidence that Joe Biden himself may have been exposed to crimes.
So this pardon not only protects Hunter Biden, but to its vast extent, it potentially protects Joe Biden himself.
Greenwald said the pardon is reminiscent of the one President George H.W. Bush granted to participants in the Iran-Contra affair. The Reagan administration illegally sold weapons to Iran and diverted the proceeds to Nicaraguan guerrillas seeking to overthrow the communist government.
Greenwald said the pardon protected Bush because it blocked criminal investigations into participants in the arms sale, including Bush as vice president.
