#1,018: Pardon Me!
Emilie Todd and Benjamin Hardin Helm, 1857.
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr’s. recent pardon of his son Hunter has a lot of people talking. According to recent polling done by the now-80 year old Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago, only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of the President’s decision to pardon his son after earlier promising he would do no such thing. The survey found that a relatively small share of Americans “strongly” or “somewhat” approve of the pardon, which came after the younger Biden was convicted on gun and tax charges. About half said they “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove, and about 2 in 10 neither approve nor disapprove. Unsurprisingly, a higher percentage of Republicans - both office-holders and everyday voters - found fault with Biden’s act than Democrats. As soon as the pardon was announced, the President-Elect took to Truth Social, slamming Biden for what he called "an abuse and miscarriage of Justice! Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?" he wrote. Steven Cheung, the President-Elect’s communications director, told Newsweek, "The failed witch hunts against President Trump have proven that the Democrat-controlled DOJ and other radical prosecutors are guilty of weaponizing the justice system."
Political commentator Ben Shapiro slammed the president for his decision to issue the pardon, saying that Biden "has always been a venal liar who utilized his political power to pursue familial gain. So of course he's pardoning Hunter. He was always going to pardon Hunter. Hunter was the bagman." Shapiro and many other voices on the right have seized on the timeframe of Hunter's pardon to note that it starts before he joined Ukrainian gas company Burisma's board of directors. Shapiro later posted a video trying to connect the dots on this narrative.
Ezra Klein, a popular New York Times opinion columnist, acknowledged that "it's terrible politics and precedent," but argued that "the Trump team has been brutally clear they want revenge on their enemies, they are obsessed with Hunter in particular, and that would weigh like hell on me if I were his father and could protect him." Klein also joked about the "Dark Brandon" memes and endorsed the suggestion that Hunter Biden should appear on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Political pollster Nate Silver had harsh words for the president, writing on X that he "voted for Harris despite feeling like Democrats indulged in a lot of bad behavior that voters were rational to publish. After the White House lying about the Hunter pardon I'm not sure how much more I can tolerate." Silver also called for voters to reject "any Democrat in 2028 who doesn't repudiate the pardon within 48 hours." He also accused the White House of "consistently" lying about Biden's plan to abide by the court's decision on Hunter Biden's cases and called Biden "a selfish and senile old man."
Many Republicans, including members of both the House and Senate appear to believe that Biden’s pardon of son Hunter was, historically speaking, absolutely nonpareil; that no other POTUS had ever pardoned a member of his own family. If they really, truly believe this (which I doubt) when the lights go down and they put their heads on the pillow, then they had best go back and relearn high school-level American history. For not only did their once-and-future leader pardon his מַחֲטוּנִים* billionaire real estate mogul Charles Kushner in December 2020; he recently announced that he was nominating him to become America’s next Ambassador to France. (*Pronounced mechute’n), this is a basically untranslatable Yiddish term, meaning something like “your child’s father-in-law” which, in the eyes of Jewish custom, makes Jared’s father a flesh-and-blood member of the Trump family). And to make sure we’re all on the same page, remember that In 2005, Charles Kushner was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. After learning that his brother-in-law was cooperating with federal investigators, Charles Kushner hired a sex worker to lure him into a hotel room with a hidden camera and then sent the recording of the encounter to his sister. The senior Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 counts, including tax evasion and witness tampering. He was sentenced to two years in prison and was ordered to pay $508,900 to the Federal Election Commission. After his release - and before he received his pardon - he returned to the real estate business.
So we can add IT to Biden as presidents who have pardoned family members. But we’re not even halfway there. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a posthumous pardon to Confederate General Benjamin Hardin Helm, who was the late husband of Emilie Todd Helm, (that’s them in the picture above). Emilie Todd was the half-sister of Lincoln’s wife, thereby making the general Lincoln’s brother-in-law. General Helm was the last commander of the “Orphan Brigade”* and was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln had originally offered Emilie Todd's husband a position in the Union Army, but he chose to raise a regiment for the Confederacy. (*The “Orphan Brigade was made up of Kentucky regiments that were "orphans" because Kentucky's secession movement failed, leaving them without a "home state" in the Confederacy.) Nonetheless, Lincoln pardoned him, thus permitting his widow (who after his death moved to the White House), to sell her homestead and Kentucky-grown tobacco on the open market.
Ironically, Abraham Lincoln also pardoned Joseph Robinette Biden’s Great Great Grandfather, Moses Robinette on September 1, 1864. In 1861, Robinette, who was working as a veterinary surgeon for the Army of the Potomac’s reserve artillery had been convicted of a number of offenses including attempted murder. Found guilty in 1864, he was sent to the Dry Tortugas islands of Florida to serve out his 2-year sentence. When the attempted murder charge was overturned, Robinette’s case was brought to Lincoln’s attention. Within a matter of weeks, the nation’s 16th POTUS pardoned “Doc” Robinette.
Rounding out the list of presidents who have pardoned family members is Bill Clinton, our 42nd Commander-in-Chief. On one of his last days in office, he issued a pardon for his half-brother Roger Clinton, Jr., who, in 1985, had been tried, convicted and served federal time for possession and drug-trafficking. The conviction came on the heels of a sting operation operation looking into conspiracy to distribute cocaine. During the time his brother served as POTUS, Roger’s Secret Service code name was “Headache,” due to his unpredictable behavior.
I for one am a bit torn about Joe Biden pardoning Hunter. On the one hand, this man has lived through more family tragedy than perhaps anyone in public life: those of a certain age well remember the president’s shared anguish over his two sons, after the boys survived a car crash that killed Biden's first wife and a daughter more than a half-century ago. Or to those who heard the president regularly lament the death of his older son, Beau, from cancer, or voice concerns — largely in private — about Hunter’s sobriety and health after years of deep addiction. But on the other, for months prior to the November election President Biden said he would not, under any circumstance, pardon his remaining son: “No one is above the law.” His stunning reversal is hard for a majority of Americans to swallow, myself included. But this pardon is not the sum total of everything one need to know about Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. For Republicans, this reversal gives them license to self-righteously proclaim to anyone and everyone who will listen and agree, that this pardon will, when all is said and done, be the only thing history will remember about Joe Biden. This is stuff and nonsense. American history is replete with presidents who have granted pardons that are far more questionable and downright dishonest:
In 1869, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Dr. Samuel Mudd, who had been sentenced for assisting Abraham Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth. It is likely that Mudd earned his pardon from Ft. Jefferson n part because of his efforts to halt the spread of an outbreak of deadly yellow fever at the prison. (In 1936, 20th Century Fox produced a film loosely based on Mudd’s life. The Prisoner of Shark Island, directed by John Ford, and starring Warner Baxter.
In 1922, President Calvin Coolidge granted an unconditional pardon to Lothar Witzke, a citizen of the Weimar Republic who had been imprisoned in the United States for his involvement in a 1916 bombing attack on New York Harbor that left seven dead. After being Coolidge’s pardon, Witzke was deported to Germany where he received a hero’s welcome.
In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant effectively pardoned most members of the Confederacy when he signed the Amnesty Act. This allowed former Confederacy members to once again vote and hold office. Tensions were still high across the United States and Grant viewed the act as a way to promote unity. Believe it or not, the incoming administration has used this act in defense of their stated goal of pardoning all the jailed or arrested January 6 perpetrators.
On September 8, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford signed what is hands down, the most controversial pardon in American history: that of Richard Nixon. The former president received a full, unconditional pardon for his role in the Watergate Scandal, which resulted in his resignation. Nixon is the only former president to receive a pardon.
IT’s mass pardons of such convicted loyalists as Roger Stone, Paul Manifort, Michael Flynn and former Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio The last of these was perhaps IT’s most controversial pardon. Arpaio was convicted of contempt of court for illegally detaining people without reasonable evidence after being ordered to cease these practices. Civil rights groups protested the pardon as they viewed Arpaio's actions as unconstitutional attacks on immigrants. to name but a few.
Those who believe that Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son (despite his earlier statements to the contrary) will be all that history remembers him for are delusional. Historians (presidential and otherwise) tend to have a far broader and more all-encompassing view of our nation’s chief executives than political operatives, staunch loyalists and the so-called “partisan base.” I’ve got to believe that Joe Biden doesn’t sleep as well at night as the man who will replace him come January 20, 2025. Biden, when all is said and done, is a man of heart, faith, inherent kindness and conscience. He is, in the words of Mark Twain, “. . . the sort of man who speaks a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”t A perfect man? No, of course not. But within his soul he is at least a man who cares about doing for others, rather than mostly - if not strictly - for himself. His successor, on the other hand, sleeps well and does not worry a farthing about what history’s . . . let alone G-d’s . . . judgement of him will be. In his mind it really doesn’t matter, for he will be dead and all those mansions, towers and golf courses bearing his name will be the only legacy that matters. However much he will ultimately eviscerate democracy while enriching both himself and his billionaire backers is of no concern to him, for he lives only in the moment, only for himself.
Will IT ever get his comeuppance? Will it ever dawn on a majority of the American voting public that the man they elected with precisely 49.78% of the popular vote is a grifter, a conman, what British humorist Sir P.G. Wodehouse would have called a “gumboil of a human being”? I hope so. 2026 is going to be as crucial - if not more so - than 2024. Already, Democrats are raising money and seeking candidates in order to take back both the House and the Senate in the next mid-term elections . . . assuming there will be elections.
If I sound a bit harried and pessimistic, please, PARDON ME!
Copyright024 Kurt Franklin Stone