Testy Schumer refus­es to address Biden par­don of son Hunter

Schumer, pressed four times by sep­a­rate reporters on the issue that has roiled Democ­rats on Capi­tol Hill, con­tin­ued to offer the same blunt response: “I’ve got noth­ing for you on that.”

Schumer indi­cat­ed he would con­clude the press con­fer­ence ear­ly if reporters did not change the sub­ject.

The episode on such a con­tentious issue marked a rare moment of silence from Schumer, who will be one of the high­est-rank­ing Democ­rats in Wash­ing­ton next year under a Repub­li­can Con­gress and White House.

Biden’s blan­ket par­don of his son extend­ed well beyond the felony tax and gun charges he was con­vict­ed of and had yet to be sen­tenced for. The deci­sion to put per­son­al inter­ests above the par­ty drew a rebuke from Democ­rats at lev­els not seen since the sum­mer, when par­ty lead­ers refused to back the president’s reelec­tion bid, lead­ing to his even­tu­al with­draw­al.

An array of Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers and gov­er­nors accused Biden of putting “per­son­al inter­est ahead of duty” and “erod­ing” faith in the jus­tice sys­tem, and they warned he may for­ev­er “tar­nish his rep­u­ta­tion.” They expressed empa­thy for Biden’s action as a father but not as the pres­i­dent.

Biden said he reached the deci­sion over beliefs that the pros­e­cu­tion against his son had been taint­ed with unfair polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion.

“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,” Biden said in his par­don let­ter. “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unre­lent­ing attacks and selec­tive pros­e­cu­tion. 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.”

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An out­lier among the crit­i­cism from Democ­rats was Schumer’s deputy and long­time Biden ally, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Whip Dick Durbin (D‑IL), who defend­ed the par­don to the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er.

“It is a right giv­en to the pres­i­dent, a pow­er giv­en to him under the Con­sti­tu­tion, and Joe Biden is using it in a very humane way,” Durbin said. “I think Hunter Biden has been exploit­ed for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es. It’s not the first time. Won’t be the last time in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, but I can cer­tain­ly under­stand Joe Biden stand­ing up and say­ing that he wants to pro­tect his son.”

David Sivak con­tributed to this report.