The trickle of intraparty criticism over President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter increased throughout the day on Monday, as a growing chorus of congressional Democrats returned to Washington and laid into the president for going back on his word after spending more than a year insisting that the pardon was not on the table.
“He said he wouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t have broken his promise,” Senator Tim Kaine (D., Va) told National Review Monday evening a few hours after he issued a statement criticizing Biden’s decision.
Most Democrats who are frustrated by the president’s pardon — which came days before his son’s sentencing for a federal gun conviction and a tax-evasion guilty plea — acknowledged the difficulty and pain that came with Hunter’s addiction to crack cocaine.
“Anybody who’s got kids knows what a tragedy it is to have a child that’s addicted for year after year on drugs,” Senator John Hickenlooper (D., Colo.) told NR Monday evening. “They literally lose their ability to make responsible decisions, and I recognize that President Biden felt that his son was prosecuted unfairly, way beyond what would have normally been justified.”
“But,” Hickenlooper added, “we are a country of law, and he was tried by his peers.”
There’s no shortage of congressional Democrats who have continued to stay mum on the matter since Biden’s announcement Sunday evening, and a number of Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill Monday evening staunchly defended the president’s decision. And yet with Biden’s presidency coming to an end, a significant number of congressional Democrats clearly feel that they have little political capital to lose when criticizing the lame-duck octogenarian during his final days atop the party hierarchy.
The outgoing president’s sweeping pardon immunizes the younger Biden for any offenses he “may have committed or taken part in” over an eleven-year period. And it comes less than two months before his predecessor, Donald Trump, returns to the White House with plans to potentially pardon those imprisoned for participating in the January 6th Capitol riot.
The pardon’s time period of January 1, 2014, to December 1, 2024, includes the entirety of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings as well as the tax and gun charges that special counsel David Weiss prosecuted him for.
The scope of the pardon has some Democrats worried about the precedent that will be set for future commanders in chief — namely the president-elect. Elaborating on his Monday-morning statement that Biden’s pardon puts “personal interest ahead of duty” and undermines Americans’ faith in the justice system, Senator Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) said that Biden’s decision sets a “lousy precedent” for future presidents, especially as Trump is “on his way to town.”
Some Senate Democrats defended Joe Biden’s move to pardon his son, with Senator Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) accusing Trump of politicizing the FBI. “Given the extent to which Donald Trump is politicizing the FBI, I think it’s understandable,” Wyden told reporters. Trump announced Saturday that he has chosen MAGA hardliner Kash Patel to run the FBI and clean house at the bureau.
“This decision must have been a deeply personal one,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told National Review, calling the move “an exercise of discretion that is accorded to the president under the Constitution.” He added that it’s “his alone to make to his son.”
Senator Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) told NR that “it’s within the realm of the president’s authority, and that’s been the case for a very long time.”
Right after the pardon, numerous Republican lawmakers were quick to lambast Joe Biden for reversing his promise and said it was part of a larger pattern of behavior from the Biden family. According to NBC News, it was Joe Biden’s plan to publicly state he would not pardon his son, while keeping the option on the table privately.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted Monday that Joe Biden “came to the decision this weekend.” She subsequently took to X to deny NBC’s reporting and reiterate her statements.