Hunter Biden par­don seen as rebuke of Gar­land DOJ

In con­junc­tion with the sweep­ing 11-year par­don, the pres­i­dent announced Sun­day that he believed his son, who was con­vict­ed on three fed­er­al gun charges for lying on a firearms appli­ca­tion and plead­ed guilty to fed­er­al tax eva­sion charges ear­li­er this year, was being unfair­ly tar­get­ed by his polit­i­cal rivals. Since then, the president’s deci­sion has incit­ed pub­lic skep­ti­cism about both the impar­tial­i­ty of the jus­tice sys­tem and the moti­va­tions behind the president’s deci­sion.

The par­don was an “acknowl­edg­ment that this Jus­tice Depart­ment has engaged in law­fare and the weaponiza­tion of crim­i­nal jus­tice,” Har­vard Law School pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus Alan Der­showitz told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er.

Der­showitz said he viewed the par­don as a denun­ci­a­tion of Attor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land and spe­cial coun­sel David Weiss, whom Gar­land appoint­ed in 2023 amid pres­sure from Repub­li­cans to inves­ti­gate Hunter Biden over his for­eign busi­ness deal­ings that GOP crit­ics said were tai­lored to ben­e­fit the elder Biden.

“It’s a rebuke to Gar­land, it’s a rebuke to the spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Weiss, it’s a rebuke to the entire sys­tem,” said Der­showitz, who rep­re­sent­ed Trump dur­ing his first impeach­ment tri­al.

The con­ser­v­a­tive Arti­cle III Project’s senior coun­sel, Will Cham­ber­lain, said Biden’s par­don and the accom­pa­ny­ing crit­i­cism of the cas­es amounts to a “crit­i­cism of Gar­land.”

“Gar­land appoint­ed Weiss and would have had to sign off on major inves­tiga­tive steps,” Cham­ber­lain said. “Biden can’t crit­i­cize the pros­e­cu­tion as polit­i­cal with­out implic­it­ly crit­i­ciz­ing Gar­land.”

In a recent Wash­ing­ton Post op-ed, the edi­to­r­i­al board described Biden’s deci­sion as an “unques­tion­able legal right” but one that “maligned” the DOJ under Gar­land. The arti­cle assert­ed that the par­don “invit­ed” Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump to “draw equiv­a­lence between the Hunter Biden par­don and any future moves Mr. Trump might take against the impar­tial admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.”

Gar­land has not issued any pub­lic com­ment since the par­don­ing of the first son on Sun­day. His most recent com­ments about par­dons date back to August, when he was asked about Trump’s float­ed plans to par­don defen­dants from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

“The con­vic­tions indi­cate that both juries and judges have agreed with our charges,” Gar­land told reporters in August when asked about Trump’s plans to par­don defen­dants from the riot. “Par­dons are anoth­er mat­ter, and I real­ly don’t have any­thing to say about that.”

For­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Andy McCarthy was more skep­ti­cal of the sub­stance of Biden’s crit­i­cisms of the Gar­land DOJ and likened the president’s state­ment to “play-act­ing.”

“Biden knows the things he said about his son’s case are not true and that, in fact, Hunter was giv­en spe­cial treat­ment, not selec­tive pros­e­cu­tion,” McCarthy said. “This is all being said polit­i­cal­ly (for pub­lic con­sump­tion), and none of it is real.”

McCarthy also said that “Weiss did not con­duct a real inves­ti­ga­tion” and added that “Gar­land tried to dis­ap­pear Hunter’s case,” but instead endured humil­i­a­tion once a prene­go­ti­at­ed plea deal blew up before a fed­er­al judge in Delaware in July 2023.

In Biden’s state­ment, he blamed Repub­li­cans in Con­gress for “insti­gat­ing” an inves­ti­ga­tion into his son, claim­ing “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.”

But Weiss’s lead pros­e­cu­tor, Leo Wise, vehe­ment­ly object­ed to the president’s asser­tion in court fil­ings on Tues­day, cit­ing that no court has agreed when the “defen­dant false­ly claimed that the charges were the result of some improp­er motive.”

McCarthy also not­ed that the par­don was always a fail­safe that Biden had under his tool belt if all else failed and that Weiss’s role as spe­cial coun­sel was mere­ly a way to “pre­tend” that the pros­e­cu­tion of Hunter Biden was being han­dled by an “inde­pen­dent” lawyer.

“But Weiss not only is not inde­pen­dent, he is the U.S. Attor­ney for the Dis­trict of Delaware,” McCarthy said, adding, “This means that if Biden real­ly thought Weiss abused his pow­er, he could fire Weiss imme­di­ate­ly — U.S. attor­neys serve at the plea­sure of the pres­i­dent. So the whole thing is non­sense.”

George­town law pro­fes­sor Jonathan Tur­ley said Hunter Biden man­aged to escape from any con­se­quences in part because he “flaunt­ed his sta­tus as a pro­tect­ed per­son among the Wash­ing­ton elite. He is one of Washington’s untouch­ables.”

“In order to ratio­nal­ize this abu­sive use of the par­don pow­er, the pres­i­dent is now attack­ing his own Jus­tice Depart­ment as polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed and engaged in law­fare,” Tur­ley added.

Although the indict­ments against the first son nev­er includ­ed any alle­ga­tions of influ­ence-ped­dling inves­ti­gat­ed by the House Over­sight Com­mit­tee, Repub­li­cans charged that the president’s fam­i­ly, through deal­ings han­dled by his son, had used their influ­ence and sta­tus to make more than $20 mil­lion begin­ning at the end of Biden’s vice pres­i­den­cy in 2015.

Now, ques­tions linger over what Repub­li­cans can or will do in the 119th Con­gress that could move for­ward an inves­ti­ga­tion into whether the sit­ting pres­i­dent ben­e­fit­ed from his son’s alleged influ­ence oper­a­tion. Even though Hunter Biden can no longer be pros­e­cut­ed for any alleged actions since around 2014, his par­don means that he can be brought in to tes­ti­fy under oath dur­ing future con­gres­sion­al inquiries or court hear­ings.

House Over­sight Com­mit­tee Chair­man James Com­er (R‑KY) has not said much about the future of inves­ti­ga­tions into the Biden fam­i­ly but sug­gest­ed in a state­ment to reporters Tues­day that he is not done with the first son yet.

“We still don’t have the pseu­do­nym emails, which we believe will show Joe Biden was com­mu­ni­cat­ing secret­ly with the shady asso­ciates that were a part of the mon­ey laun­der­ing scheme with the mon­ey from our adver­saries around the world,” Com­er told the Dai­ly Beast.

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“I look for­ward to talk­ing to Attor­ney Gen­er­al [Pam] Bon­di about this,” Com­er added, refer­ring to Trump’s nom­i­nee for attor­ney gen­er­al.

The Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er con­tact­ed the DOJ for com­ment.