So long Joe. And good riddance.
President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter is a fitting tailpiece to a dismal one-term tenure of the most powerful office in the world.
The Biden family has been a stain on the White House that will be erased in just 23 days’ time.
If draining the swamp has a human face, it’s theirs. No one epitomises the entrenched inside-the-beltway abuse of privilege more than the Bidens.
Joe Biden promised much to those his Democratic Party said it would protect and uplift. However, he produced little.
But he delivered big time for his family and the rich elites who have suckered onto his patronage.
Biden’s statement attached to his executive grant of clemency, which bestowed “a full and unconditional pardon” on Hunter, is a masterclass in duplicity.
“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,” Biden said.
But when asked in June if his son had received a fair trial, Biden said he was “satisfied” that was the case. Now his statement asserts Hunter was the subject of “a miscarriage of justice”.
At a G7 summit, he told reporters: “I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him.”
Biden’s untruthful justification for backsliding on his son’s convictions for gun and tax charges, ridiculously blaming political opponents for prosecutions launched by his own notoriously pro-Democrat Department of Justice, is far from the worst part of this calumny.
Neither is this bare-faced hypocrisy: “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 . . .
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
Biden is not the first president to issue questionable pardons. And there have been many other egregious incidents, including some by Donald Trump.
But no other president has pardoned his son. And that is aggravated by the fact that Hunter hadn’t even been sentenced.
The BBC reported a US justice department official saying it was “highly unusual” for a president to pardon someone before sentencing. And the department recommends a five-year waiting period before applying a pardon.
But even that’s not the worst part of this unprincipled act. That is something excluded from the statement, but which is the key feature of the attached grant of clemency proclamation.
Hunter is pardoned for “those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”
Jeffrey Crouch, an assistant professor of politics at American University, says it “is highly unusual to have a presidential pardon that covers such a broad time span”. Let alone that Hunter is pardoned for things for which he has never been charged.
But why does the pardon go back to 2014 when the offences for which he was convicted are much more recent?
Well, that’s when Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukraine’s biggest gas producer, Burisma, despite having no credentials in the law relevant to that industry, nor any experience in the country.
But his father, then America’s vice-president, had been put in charge of America’s relationship with Ukraine by Barack Obama, ironically with the explicit task of addressing the country’s entrenched corruption.
In excluding from potential prosecution Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine, Biden also effectively pardoned himself. And that’s another notorious first.
Here’s how the Bidens ran a lucrative influence-peddling operation that may now be beyond punishment.
In March 2014, the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office began a money laundering investigation into Burisma, owned by Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky.
Hunter curiously joined Burisma’s board just a month later. He was paid a staggering US$83,333 ($135,000) a month in director’s fees, but rarely attended any meetings.
What may have spooked Joe Biden recently was the news that Trump intends to install his former impeachment defence lawyer, Pam Bondi, as America’s new Attorney-General.
Bondi told Trump’s 2020 Senate impeachment hearing that Hunter joined the Burisma board with Devon Archer, his partner in investment firm Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
“Public records show that April 16, 2014, Devon Archer meets with vice president Biden at the White House,” Bondi said. “Just two days later, on April 18, 2014 is when Hunter Biden quietly joins Burisma . . .
“ . . . 10 days after Hunter Biden joins the board, British authorities seize $23 million in British bank accounts connected to the oligarch Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma. Did Hunter Biden leave the board then? No.”
Join these dots.
Joe Biden boasted publicly in January, 2018 about telling Ukrainian officials in December, 2015, that he would withhold $1 billion in aid if they did not sack a certain prosecutor he said was corrupt.
That controversial prosecutor was investigating Burisma. “If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden recalled saying. “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Bondi noted Hunter refused to speak about his role in Burisma, but was cornered by a reporter: “If your last name wasn’t Biden, do you think you would have been asked to be on the board of Burisma?”
Hunter: “I don’t know, probably not.”
One month before the 2020 presidential election, a Republican-dominated Senate committee issued a report on the Biden family’s business activities.
Like the New York Post revelations about the contents of Hunter’s mislaid laptop computer, the report was largely ignored by America’s mainstream media, effectively running a protection racket for the Bidens and the Democrats.
Those that reported it, dismissed it as partisan. Next year, those Republicans who pursued the issue will be back in power.
The Post story constructed from emails found on the laptop — which has since been proved to be substantially true — linked Hunter’s activities in Ukraine and China directly to his father’s vice presidency.
It alleged that Joe Biden as vice-president in 2015 met with an adviser to Burisma in Washington, arranged by Hunter who was still a board member. The nature of the meeting has never been explained.
Shortly after the Post story broke, another of Hunter’s business partners, Tony Bobulinski, broke ranks, saying that “the big guy” referred to in another of the emails about dividing the spoils of a Chinese deal was Joe Biden. The big guy was to get a 10 per cent cut.
Bobulinski has credibility because he was a party to the email exchanges as CEO of a Biden family company.
Hunter accompanied his father on Air Force Two for official trips to the Ukraine and China. The emails show he used the visits to land lucrative business deals.
The Democrats initially portrayed the laptop disclosures as Russian disinformation, without offering any evidence to prove that assertion. The line was parroted by the media.
When the Democrats’ extensive and costly two-year inquiry into allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to affect his election failed, they confected a threadbare impeachment case for “abuse of office” over a phone call congratulating Volodymyr Zelensky on becoming Ukraine’s president.
The Democrats’ asserted Trump withheld $250m in Congress-approved financial assistance until Zelensky agreed to Trump’s demands for “dirt” on the Bidens.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney-General would be great,” Trump said during the call.
The 87-page Senate report ended with the assertion that “Hunter Biden and his family were involved in a vast financial network that connected them to foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe”.
So was that the reason for the pardon? To head off a new investigation into their influence-peddling.
“Hunter Biden and Devon Archer, in particular, formed significant and consistent financial relationships with the corrupt oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky during their time working for Burisma, and their firms made millions of dollars from that association while Joe Biden was vice president,” the report said.
“And finally, Biden and Archer’s work with Chinese nationals connected to the Communist regime illustrate the deep financial connections that accelerated while Joe Biden was vice president and continued after he left office.
“The investigation has faced many obstacles from executive agencies that have failed to comply with document requests. Accordingly, there remains much work to be done.”
Joe Biden’s pardon for his son is designed to head off such work and deny it a scalp.
But Americans still deserve the truth about ingrained corruption at the heart of their democracy.