Biden’s Inexcusable Hypocrisy – The Atlantic

When President Joe Biden is running for a second term as president. He denied Hunter a pardon. his son many times who pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying on a form to buy a gun. “He was very clear. Very straightforward And very clear,” White House press secretary Carine Jean-Pierre said of one of his many promises to this effect.

Biden has acknowledged the willingness to abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle. But in breaking his promise and issued a grand pardon to his son for any crime. of what he may have committed over an 11-year period, Biden has revealed that his pledge is merely a tool.

in a defiant statement issued last night. Biden insists his son’s lawsuit is selective and unfair. “No reasonable person is looking at the facts of Hunter’s case,” he said. write“What other conclusion can be reached than that Hunter was singled out only because he is my child – and that is wrong.”

It may be true that one of the crimes alleged against Hunter Biden was lying in a form to obtain a firearm. It is something that the average person is unlikely to face charges of. (Hunter confirms in the form that he is a quiet person. (He later admitted that he was addicted to drugs.) People who are not political targets are often prosecuted. It’s true that Hunter Biden is more likely to be caught than average for tax fraud, an indictment of the tax system. (Ironically, this is one aspect of the system that Joe Biden intends to change by strengthening the IRS’s enforcement capabilities.)

President Biden’s complaints about higher standards being applied to his son It reflects a myopic view of privilege. Crimes committed by family members of powerful government officials are more damaging to public confidence than similar crimes by anonymous individuals. It is good and right to hold accounts with strict enforcement of the law.

What the president failed to notice in his self-pitying remarks was that Hunter Biden had engaged in legal but highly inappropriate behavior for years. By running a business selling awareness of access to his father. The only commodity hunter has to offer oligarchs in Ukraine, China and elsewhere is the belief or hope that he will put in a good word. with his father

Joe Biden’s defense in these cases is that he provided nothing of value to Hunter’s clients, without proof to the contrary. And widespread Republican efforts to find evidence that Joe shared in profits from Hunter’s access peddling business came up empty.

But Joe’s defense Biden further peddles Hunter’s influence by emphasizing Hunter’s narrow legality only to highlight the hypocrisy of his father’s indulgence. The black letter of the law is a fence to protect Hunter from the consequences of his less-than-harsh behavior. And when the law catches him He opened the door and walked through. It is a door that ordinary Americans cannot access.

The most perplexing passage in Biden’s pardon statement lays bare the unsubstantiated complicity against him by Justice Department prosecutors: “There is an effort to destroy Hunter. who has been sober for five and a half years Even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to destroy the Hunter They are trying to destroy me—and there is no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Trying to destroy the Hunter? And what about his father? To what end?

drawing simple equations between Joe’s situational ethics Biden and his successor’s ethics may seem attractive. But it’s not fair. A willingness to circumvent the rule of law has been the foundation of Donald Trump’s career in both business and politics, no exception to nepotism. Still, principles are much harder to defend when the quarterback is famous. Most of them blatantly compromise them. By deciding to forgive Just as he was adamant about running for a second term that he couldn’t win. Biden has chosen to put his own feelings ahead of protecting his country.