The weird timing of Joe Biden’s full pardon for his son, Hunter, after promises not to do so and Donald Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director is head-spinning.
After all, a promise to bring political lean to the FBI is Patel’s main calling card — just with different political foes and more euphemisms about “fairness” that punishes Trump’s enemies.
Indeed, the reality of a prison term that prompted Biden’s sudden change of heart about a Justice Department that unfairly used political lean to prosecute Hunter is using Trump’s own arguments. A minute and a half ago, it was Trump’s legal team arguing that Justice, FBI, and state prosecutors have pursued Trump unfairly, in arguing for dismissal of all criminal charges and even civil suits filed against him.
MAGA world is delighted, insisting that the same thinking should be extended from Hunter’s gun and tax evasion charges to the thousands charged after Jan. 6 rioting. Even leading Democrats seemed set on their heels by Biden’s abridgement of repeated public declaration to stay away from special counsel prosecution of Hunter.
If anyone is wondering why Americans disdain politicians on all sides, this feels like a perfect show.
None of this helps you and me, of course, none of this solves our recognized national issues, and all of it seems self-serving. On top of that, it comes with a healthy dose of hypocrisy.
The Biden Problem
The main issue with the Hunter Biden pardon is that dad said repeatedly that he would not interfere with Justice. Still, the president acknowledged that the slings and arrows of Congressional Republicans demanding a re-do of a deal by Special Counsel David Weiss, a Republican holdover, on gun registration and income tax evasion cases from 2014, when Biden was an addict, were really aimed at him, not his son.
If Biden was going to consider a pardon, he should have said so long ago. This is the same pious Biden who depicted himself as defender of democracy and of selfless devotion to governing to distinguish himself from a lying, rapacious, self-absorbed Trump before withdrawing from what appeared to be a losing reelection campaign.
In the re-filing, Hunter was convicted — twice — and was being sent to prison for violating federal statutes that even Republican prosecutors have acknowledged would be unlikely to be pressed against other defendants. What Congressional Republicans really wanted to nail Hunter for was seeking to bring the influence of his father into overseas business deals, a charge unsupported by sufficient public evidence for a criminal charge.
What Biden said was “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong . . . In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
The second problem is the language that Biden used to clear Hunter of any crime that might yet come about. That runs smack into the spirit of the presidential pardon, which basically involves a commuted sentence after a person has been convicted or pleaded guilty.
What we’ve gotten from Biden, then, are a self-serving lie, a political gift to Trump and his campaign to go after his own list of enemies, and an abrogation of the supposed purpose of the pardon powers. It stinks.
Trump’s Kash Patel Problem
At virtually the same time, Trump benighted Patel, conspiracy theorist, election denialist, and foe of Justice and the FBI to be the nation’s top cop. Setting aside the idea that Trump will have to fire Christopher Wray or get him to resign and still face another rocky Senate confirmation, it took mere seconds before comments of incredulity started landing about Patel.
In multiple public interviews, Patel, a self-described “avenger” against the “deep state,” has promised to target journalists and media outlets that have aired anti-Trump argument, and investigation of Congressmen, agents, prosecutors and others who have pursued various probes of Trump’s own behaviors over time.
He also has vowed to move FBI agents out of Washington and has accused the FBI of conspiring against Trump on a variety of instances dating back to investigations of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives to a conspiratorial role in fomenting the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt.
It is exactly that image of Patel as an institutional flamethrower that seems to appeal to Trump over a background that would otherwise be a leap of judgment to think that Patel was a logical choice for FBI director. Together with former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi as U.S. Attorney General, Trump’s own legal advisers as deputy attorneys general, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as head of the U.S. intelligence services, Trump has assembled a proposed team that worries national security experts.
But the coincidental timing with the Biden pardon is an upside-down assurance that Trump wants to leap on arguments now being expressed by Biden that there is something wrong at Justice about relying on political prosecutions. Whatever average Americans might not like about either the pardon or the appointments, there will be more of the same from each side — all in the ironic name of fair play when fairness is the furthest corner distant.
