Former president Joe Biden disappointed many members of his own party earlier this month when he went back on his word and pardoned his son, Hunter, days before the younger Biden’s sentencing for a federal gun conviction and a tax-evasion guilty plea. The Hunter Biden pardon put “personal interest ahead of duty” and set a “lousy precedent” for future presidents, Senator Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) told reporters at the time.
Biden infuriated members of his own party again on Monday when he issued “full and unconditional” preemptive pardons for five additional family members on his last day in office — his brother, James Biden, and his brother’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; his sister, Valerie Biden Owens and her husband, John T. Owens; and his brother, Francis W. Biden. Biden’s pardon gives them an executive grant of clemency for any nonviolent offenses “which they may have committed or taken part in” from January 1, 2014, to his last day in office, and comes four years after the now-former president expressed concern that Donald Trump would do the same for his adult children.
“I think we’re going to have a very hard time critiquing Donald Trump’s improper use of the pardon power because of President Biden pardoning his own family members,” Senator Tim Kaine (D., Va.) told reporters on Monday, adding that he was “very disappointed” by the move.
The list of frustrated Democrats also includes freshman senator Andy Kim (D., N.J.), whose predecessor — disgraced former senator Bob Menendez — is reportedly seeking a pardon from Donald Trump as he awaits sentencing on federal corruption charges.
“There’s just an overwhelming feeling amongst the people I talk to in New Jersey that it just feels like politics is some exclusive club for the well-off and the well-connected,” Senator Andy Kim (D., N.J.) told National Review Monday evening while being quick to add that corruption plagues both sides of the aisle in Washington. “And if you’re in that club, you don’t have the same consequences. You don’t have the same rules that apply.”