WASHINGTON — President Biden on Sunday granted his son Hunter Biden one of the broadest pardons in recent history. After the commander-in-chief's role in his son and brother's foreign dealings spurred an impeachment inquiry against Joe and tax evasion and firearms charges against Hunter and Hunter. Allegations of illegal foreign lobbying against father and son.
The pardon was one of the most controversial in U.S. history, with even fellow Democrats decrying the move and President Bill Clinton's decision being widely seen as a corrupt pay-for-money system. along with President Gerald's pardon of fugitive megadonor Marc Rich. Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who had given Ford the Oval Office after the Watergate cover-up.
Biden, 82, assured the American people that he would not pardon Hunter, 54, but then backtracked on those words and said he would not pardon Hunter, 54, for any crimes committed during the 11-year period from January 1, 2014 to December 2014. granted immunity under federal law. January 2024.
This time frame coincides with Hunter's major foreign dealings during his father's vice presidency (then-Vice President Biden frequently interacted with his son's patrons in countries that led U.S. foreign policy). , which covers more recent Congressional investigations.
Mr. Hunter earned millions of dollars in foreign income from 2014 to 2019, primarily from two Chinese state-owned companies and Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, but the broad language of the pardon means that Mr. This means that they are exempt from crimes for which they have not been charged. The suspect is accused of foreign lobbying violations involving his father and interstate sex crimes related to IRS agents' documents for payments to prostitutes.
He also cannot face federal charges for alleged wrongdoing in subsequent years.
Since his father entered the White House in January 2021, Hunter has embarked on a controversial career as a novice artist, in what skeptics have declared a plan to spread further influence. (one of the appointees from his father's committee purchased two works) and another appointee showed up at his art show. .
Mr. Hunter also testified falsely before Congress this year and paid off his legal fees with a loan of about $6.5 million from a prominent Democratic lawyer, whom he first met at a fundraiser for his father in late 2019, which Republicans say is They argued that it could violate federal elections. Law.
Corruption allegations against Biden
President Biden's false claims that he will not pardon his son follow brazen lies about his role in fundamental business transactions.
Biden said this in the final debate of the 2020 election. 63 million viewers Incriminating documents recovered from the laptop his son threw away were said to be from a “Russian factory.”
At the time, the Post revealed emails showing then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with Burisma executives in April 2015 — even though Claims he has “never talked about” business With his son or eldest brother, James Biden, and a May 2017 email, Joe Biden, known as “The Big Guy,” announced that he would receive a 10% cut from a business plan with Chinese state-owned energy company CEFC China Energy. It was noted that a reduction had been entered. That same year, it paid Hunter and James Biden and their associates $8.1 million.
The laptop's authenticity was later widely corroborated and was used in court against Hunter.
Tony Bobulinski, one of the Biden family associates, said he discussed the CEFC contract with Joe Biden in May 2017, and another associate, Rob Walker, later said that Joe Biden went to Washington in early 2017. He testified that he met with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming at the Four Seasons Hotel in DC. The first $3 million was sent in recognition of the work Hunter and his allies did during the Obama-Biden administration.
Biden has continued to deny that he had any interactions with his family's foreign partners in December and March, despite photos, emails and witness testimony showing otherwise. ” he said.
In fact, House Republicans have presented evidence that the president interacted with a number of domestic officials, as well as family members of two Chinese government-linked businesses and their patrons in Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, and Ukraine. Submitted.
Congressional Republicans said in the final impeachment inquiry report released in August that Biden abused his power and obstructed the investigation after Democratic lawmakers forced him to abandon the Democratic presidential nomination in July. denounced.
Some information about the Biden family's foreign dealings remains unclear, including that Joe Biden has no direct or indirect involvement in the family's business, beyond giving him valuable influence over the parties involved. It also includes disputes about how public power is used to achieve benefits.
For example, Biden's use of a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee as leverage to oust Ukraine's Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in 2016 remains hotly debated, but recently emerging evidence suggests that It shows that senior U.S. foreign policy officials were surprised by such actions by the elder Biden and by Attorney General Hunter. Devon Archer, a former Burisma board associate, testified that company executives joined Hunter to call his father in Washington, D.C., around the same time.
Some aspects of Mr. Biden's relationships with officials remain unclear, such as his meeting with Mr. Ye, who has disappeared amid corruption allegations by the Chinese government.
A widely discussed transfer of $3.5 million from former Moscow first lady Elena Baturina to a company run by Hunter Biden and Archer also remains obscure, but it was reported that Biden was in Washington D.C. in 2014. Evidence later emerged that Mr. Hunter had been helping the oligarch shop for real estate in the United States, having dined with Mr. and Mrs. Baturina.
As part of the deal with Burisma, Hunter was chairman of the geothermal subsidiary, but Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko was listed as a “core shareholder,” according to an email sent to his laptop. Klitschko, who met with Joe Biden many times, denied any such role, but former colleagues of the men corroborated the contents of the emails.
1974: Ford pardons Nixon
President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon in 1974 after he resigned over the Watergate scandal. In this case, evidence emerged that he was actually involved in defending the allies who infiltrated the Democratic Party's government in June 1972.
“Our long national nightmare is over,” declared Ford, who became vice president in December 1973 after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned over an unrelated tax fraud case.
Mr. Nixon resigned when Republicans began abandoning him in impeachment proceedings and the “Decision Machine” tapes confirmed that Mr. Nixon had directed the cover-up.
Although it was highly controversial at the time, Mr. Ford said he pardoned Mr. Nixon to allow the country to move on after a bitter political scandal.
Gerald Terhorst, Ford's White House press secretary, resigned after just one month in office in protest of the pardon.
“We conclude that former presidents are more deserving of mercy than people in lower positions in life whose criminal acts have far less impact on the well-being of our people,” the spokesperson said in his resignation letter. is impossible.”
Political opponents claimed that there was a fraudulent deal in which Ford pardoned Nixon in exchange for the presidency, but Ford denied this and defended Nixon's decision in Congressional testimony.
“There was no agreement,” Ford told a House subcommittee. “There has never been an agreement to pardon Mr. Nixon if he were to resign and I became president.”
Evidence has emerged that eight days before President Nixon resigned in August 1974, Nixon's aide Alexander Haig raised the possibility of a pardon to Ford, but Ford said he had not made any promises. Ta.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter relied on this legacy to posthumously pardon Confederate President Jefferson Davis, stating, “Our nation must atone for the guilt, enmity, and reproach of the past.”
2001: Clinton pardons Marc Rich
In the most controversial final-day pardon, President Bill Clinton pardoned billionaire fugitive Marc Rich after his ex-wife, Denise Rich, made generous donations to Democrats.
This pardon was considered a legal bribe.
Rich fled to Switzerland in 1983 after being charged with $48 million in tax evasion and purchasing $200 million of Iranian oil in violation of a U.S. embargo during the 1979 hostage crisis.
Dennis Rich greased the wheels by donating more than $1 million to Democrats, including more than $100,000 to support Hillary Clinton's New York Senate campaign and more than $450,000 to Bill Clinton's presidential library. .
New York Times Editorial Board He called the pardon a “shocking abuse of presidential power.””
Jimmy Carter, in a rare rebuke, called this “disgraceful.”
Even John Podesta, President Clinton's White House chief of staff at the time, strongly opposed it, later telling Congress, “My staff told the president that our view is that a pardon cannot be granted.” .
But former Clinton pollster and adviser Mark Penn argued Sunday night: ×post Hunter's actions were truly “disgraceful”.
“This wasn't just a pardon for Hunter Biden, it was a pardon for Joe Biden himself, because his son, working with Joe's brother, hatched a plan to crack down on his opponents for more than $20 million. Because they didn't even pay taxes on it,” Penn said.
“And the spoils were distributed even to their grandchildren. And this is another of the many issues on which the American people have been shamefully gaslighted,” he added.
“Of course, Biden falsely claimed that he would not forgive his son. So what else was Biden falsely saying before the election about what he would do if he had been elected? We will never know, but we can certainly speculate…”
