Summary
President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, prompting strong backlash from Republicans.
GOP lawmakers criticized the move as an abuse of power and an attempt to avoid accountability, with figures like Rep. James Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley calling it hypocritical and corrupt.
Biden defended the pardon, citing “selective prosecution” and claiming Hunter was unfairly targeted due to their family connection.
Hunter faced convictions for federal gun and tax charges.
Who cares? Fuck them.
Who fucking cares. trump did far worse and kushner walked away with a couple billion and not one person in the government or media batted an eyelash. We’re in a post factual society.
So two wrongs make a right I guess? Why shouldn’t we be holding all these people accountable?
In this specific case, because the hunter biden thing was political bullshit from the start. secondly though, the wrongs in question are nowhere near close to each other. third, hunters “crimes” were the typical presidential failson exploits I frankly don’t care that he excuses, perk of the job as far as I’m concerned. Getting your loser kid off the hook for drug and gun charges you know, not a coverup of the murder of a journalist for the bargain price of 2 billion dollars.
Exiting President handing away high profile pardons just before leaving office? I kind of remember when it happened before, and much worse: https://www.vox.com/22238571/trump-pardons-bannon-broidy-corruption
I’m pretty sure this was part of their plan. It’s now legit cover for Trump to pardon whoever they want.
Plus yeah, they want to talk smack. It’s not like they have any worthwhile policy ideas.
He already did that during his first term. This has nothing to do with Trump. It also doesn’t fucking matter. If people are mad about Hunter Biden owning a gun and doing cocaine, then why aren’t they mad about Don Jr doing literally exactly the same thing?
I mean there’s something to be said for handing them some ammo.
Dominate a news cycle with some bullshit and do something shady under the table.
Biden had all the justification he needed when Trump indicated he’d target his political opponents if he won.
Anyone complaining about this can fuck off.
Yup. I’d do the same.
He should pardon himself for everything before he leaves office so Maga can’t drum up some stupid made up thing to tie up his last years.
Or resign so Kamala can in the last day if he can’t.
Use trumps political retribution statement as the reason.
Or resign so Kamala can in the last day if he can’t.
I want to see that just so all that 45+47 stuff refers to Kamala
He should pardon himself for everything before he leaves office
He doesn’t need to. Presidents have immunity for “official acts”. Womp womp.
I’d say he should and then when the courts rule he can’t, Trump’s self pardon won’t work either but that’s a pipe dream.
But bidens crime was being born, and there’s no statute of limitations on that one!
Gotta be honest. That’s just a really silly thing to say.
Definitely a bad look but in all honesty it’s justified.
The right was definitely unfairly targeting Hunter. They were using him as a scapegoat since they couldn’t get to Joe.
Everyone needs to play the same game they do.
Is it hypocritical, yeah probably, does he have any reason to answer for it? Naw
Trump just put Kusher in a role … a person he pardoned for … “preparing false tax returns, witness retaliation, and making false statements to the FEC” per his own statement.
Right.
People voted this kind of behavior into office, repeatedly. Anyone clutching pearls right now can fuck off.
I sure as hell wouldn’t want my son at the mercy of Trumps DOJ.
Right?
Americans don’t get to complain about corruption anymore. We gleefully voted for corruption after it was shown to us in pretty much the most blatant way possible and given to us as a choice going forward.
It’s who we are now and we voted for it. Complaints will not be forwarded to management.
I’m not pleased at the prospect of Republicans doing the same thing in four years, after the corruption of Trump’s second term, and then pointing their fingers at this… but, to anyone with half a brain and at least one eye… Hunter wasn’t in politics, wasn’t directly appointed to his staff or a representative in any fashion within the White House, and the gun and tax crimes are small fries compared to anything the Trump family and stooges are or have been up to.
Prospect? Trump handed out pardons like candy to far worse people who happened to aligned with his politics. After 8 years of seeing Trump rat-fuck norms and laws and precedent and unjustly go after his family and get away with everything, while everyone else tries to play by the rules, Biden is probably asking himself why he has to let his son risk prison when he knows everyone in the incoming administration wouldn’t even give a second thought to pardoning.
I don’t support it, but I get it. This is the kind of shit America voted for, right?
Roger Stone, Steve Banon, Dinesh D’Souza all sorts of other crony based pardons were already done in Trumps last term.
Your Pearl Clutching the inevitable (as of it will now be Bidens fault) is ridiculous, and out of line.
Ooof, you went from my comment being just slightly irritated that he did it when he could have not done it and better served the Democratic Party by keeping his hands out of and showing that the Dems can do and be better, just a small gripe but that I understand anyway… to blasting me for ‘pearl clutching’? Ok, I guess.
I’m fuckin glad he did it.
I want to see more. We put all our hope into this party and they have yet to even throw a punch. Make a mistake so big it forces the political climate to shift, please already.
The Democrats can be better sure. But no one cares unfortunately. They re elected someone far worse.
Worse, Republicans were already hypocritically obsessed with Hunter. With them preparing to fascisticaly weaponize the DOJ. He would have been one of the first and worst targeted by them. I don’t blame or hold pardoning him against Joe Biden. It won’t stop the fascists ultimately. But it will make him less of an easy target.
Democrats spent the last 4 years worrying about optics. And they have nothing to show for it.
Prospect? Where have you been? Did you miss when Trump pardoned Jared Kushner’s father?
Prosecutors alleged that after Charles Kushner [Jared Kushner’s father] discovered his brother-in-law was cooperating with federal authorities in an investigation, he hatched a scheme for revenge and intimidation.
Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and the recording sent to his own sister, the man’s wife, prosecutors said.
In fact, this man who “pleaded guilty to 18 counts including tax evasion and witness tampering” has now been nominated to be Ambassador to France by Trump. There is no “prospect of Republicans doing the same thing in four years.” They’ve been doing it for the last 40+ years already. You just haven’t been paying attention.
It’s about time the Democrats got of their damn high horse and got down in the mud and started fighting like they mean it.
Don Jr did cocaine in public at the recent Space X launch and not a peep out of the mainstream media, much less police.
If a policeman saw a black man outside a night club do what Don Jr did, he would have been arrested on the spot and immediately thrown in jail.
There’s no disagreement from me, before you made this comment or after.
whataboutism
And those “small fries” were illegally buying a firearm and skirting $1,400,000 in federal taxes.
And I thought we were the guys who wanted stronger gun control and the rich to pay their taxes?? Does that go out the window when it’s one of “ours”?
Based on how those crimes have been enforced, yes. The federal gun charge that says a drug addict cannot own a gun is rarely enforced historically and is being challenged in the courts by Republicans because the DOJ started using it against white supremacists. Yet Hunter Biden wasn’t even allowed a plea deal because of the politics around him. As for the taxes, when he was caught, he paid them and the fines associated with them. For literally anyone else caught doing the same, that is the end of it. No jail time or further penalties.
Joe Biden tried to let the courts do their job and trusted that the courts would be fair. They weren’t. This was clearly a political prosecution and I would have done the same in (Joe) Biden’s shoes.
The federal gun charge that says a drug addict cannot own a gun is rarely enforced historically
And yet it’s still a felony. I thought we were the ones who support strong gun regulation?
wasn’t even allowed a plea deal
No one is entitled to a plea deal. For the severity of Hunter’s crimes, I’m fine with it.
As for the taxes, when he was caught, he paid them
Keyphrase: “When he was caught.” He was just fine stealing the $1.4m from Americans otherwise.
Joe Biden tried to let the courts do their job and trusted that the courts would be fair. They weren’t.
That’s not how it works and you know this is going to literally be Trump’s argument on Day One when he starts pardoning his supporters, right?
“the severity of hunters crimes”
I fucking loled
I’m not saying I agree with the decision, but as Biden, would you really want your son somewhere Trump could immediately fuck with him as soon as he wanted? Had Kamala won this would absolutely be a dumbass decision. With Trump incoming… I get it.
Who cares about what happens to Hunter “10% for The Big Guy” Biden? Maybe I’m just some poor peon who doesn’t understand how the ultra-wealthy are, but “lying during a gun purchase and not paying $1,400,000 in federal taxes” seem like pretty avoidable crimes to me.
This is such an awful thing for Biden to do. The “both sides” folk are going to have a time with this for the next four years and they’ll be absolutely right in this case.
Absolutely right?
Dems did it once, Republicans live in this shit.
See: “whataboutism”
Compared to the shit Flynn, Manafort, Stone, etc were doing? Yeah, small fry.
I think Biden should use his pardon power for good. I don’t have a huge problem with this, but I want him to do something unexpected. Biden should pardon all the married immigrants after his program was recently shot down in court. For those that don’t know, Many immigrants are married to US citizens, but cannot achieve citizenship that you normally would be able to do. It hinges on entering the country Illegally, which requires them to leave for up to 10 years before re applying for citizenship. Biden could pardon the “crime” of illegal entry, this removing the INS statue of not allowing them citizenship.
I’m really warming up to the idea of Biden doing some other “official acts” before he departs.
Fuck 'em. Let them fume. This is the party that wants to let the terrorists from Jan 6 off with a pardon. The party that thinks donvict can do no wrong.
Aww fuck those one way princesses.
Good thing Joe is not a king right? What if a king assigned a rapist to be the FBI tzar. And what if this tzar could just walk through main street and rape men and women equally in plain daylight? Nobody would bat an eye because hold on, I’m getting rapped right now, but I’ll talk about it afterwards?
stay mad
libsrepubs 😎😎😎am i doing this right
everyone was mad
In a perfect world I’d say he needs to let the system work and nobody is above the law, yada yada yada. Clearly this world and country are horribly fucked. For YEARS Republicans have been using the term “Biden Family” to make them sound like some kind of crime syndicate, coming up with “ominous facts” that were not indicative of any actual crime, held an impeachment over President Bidens head for years, distributed naked pictures of Hunter, and interfered with what would’ve been a simple plea deal, all the while trying to downplay the most corrupt presidency in our history.
Fuck the norms. Fuck ethics. Fuck propriety. The new America requires you to use every tool at your disposal just to get your most basic fucking rights. If Republicans think this is such an abuse of power they can do their fucking jobs for once in their lives and pass some fucking ethics reform. I applaud Joe’s embrace of the new normal and I hope other Democrats figure out this is the new normal, whether they like it or not, and stop playing pussyfoot with a party that’s been playing “kick the groin” for over 30 years.
