President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter in his final full month in the White House is threatening to erode his legacy as he prepares to leave office.
Biden is set to conclude his one term as president with a string of notable legislative achievements, a fundamentally strong economy and having navigated the end of a once in a generation pandemic. But his final few months, which included his refusal to drop his reelection bid until late July and his decision to pardon Hunter Biden after repeatedly saying he would not do so, is casting a cloud over the Biden presidency.
“It’s been astonishing to watch Biden cast a long shadow over his many achievements in office simply by acting as many presidents do, which is from a place of an outsized ego,” said Alexis Coe, a presidential historian and biographer.
“If Biden had dropped out of the race in 2022 on a high note after the midterms, everything that came after would have been towards the end of his biography,” Coe said. “He’s had a lifelong record of public service. Now almost everything that he has accomplished will be crammed into the beginning, and the pardon will be one of many things that dominates the rest. I would love to be wrong about that.”
The president announced unexpectedly late Sunday as he departed for a week-long trip to Africa that he was issuing a complete pardon of his son Hunter Biden absolving him of a conviction on federal gun charges and of a guilty plea on federal tax charges.
The decision sent shockwaves through the political world, eliciting criticism from Republicans and even some Democrats.
Critics raised the fact that Biden had personally said a pardon for his son was off the table repeatedly for months and that the president had spent his time in office stressing the importance of respect for the rule of law and the independence of the justice system.
Biden's respect for institutions and the Justice Department in particular was seen as especially valuable following four years of a Trump administration that frequently ignored guardrails and injected politics into investigations.
"It's just unfortunate that the president, in his attempt to protect his son, has left his own legacy so vulnerable," said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at Columbia University and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.
"This feeds the general cynicism among Republicans, but I think some Democrats, too...about politics and our national institutions," he added.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) was one of several Senate Democrats to criticize Biden’s move. Bennet posted on X that Biden's decision "put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all."
Elie Honig, a former U.S. attorney who now serves as an analyst for CNN, said on the network that the pardon could adversely affect Biden’s legacy, even as he acknowledged there was a “reasonable argument” that Hunter Biden was treated differently because of his name.
“Joe Biden, let’s be clear here, he lied to us for a long time. He said categorically I will not pardon my own son,” Honig said. “He said ‘I will take it off the table.’ And he couched it in very high-minded terminology, ‘I respect the Justice Department, I respect the jury’s verdict.’ Well now he’s gone back on that.”
Biden in his statement Sunday argued his son would not have faced the gun charges if his name were not Hunter Biden and that “raw politics” had infected his son’s cases.
He also expressed concern that the incoming Trump administration and GOP-controlled Congress would continue to target Hunter Biden. A day before the president announced the pardon, Trump said he would nominate loyalist Kash Patel, who has pledged to go after those deemed to have wronged Trump, to lead the FBI.
“In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here,” Biden said. “Enough is enough.”
Biden and his top aides said repeatedly during Hunter Biden’s legal troubles that the president would not pardon his son, including as recently as Nov. 7, after President-elect Trump won a second term.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday that the president “wrestled” with the decision and “agonized over it.”
“Two things could be true,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president does believe in the justice system and the Department of Justice. And he also believes his son was singled out politically.”
Jean-Pierre pointed to other legal experts who defended Biden’s actions, including former Attorney General Eric Holder, who called the pardon “warranted.”
“Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been - fundamentally and more fairly - a declination,” Holder posted on X.
Others noted Trump himself had expressed an openness to a pardon for Hunter Biden when asked about the idea in late October.
"Trump plays by no rules. Abuses the law. He would’ve pardoned Hunter and called you a coward for not doing it," Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina state lawmaker, posted on X.
The pardon comes at the end of what has been a consequential and politically difficult final year for Biden in the White House.
A disastrous debate performance in late June set off weeks of clamoring from Democrats about whether Biden should step aside. He ultimately ended his reelection bid in late July, giving Vice President Harris a little over 100 days to mount a campaign against Trump.
Harris was soundly defeated in November’s election, with some Democrats pointing fingers at Biden for setting her up to fail by seeking a second term despite widespread concerns about his age that the White House repeatedly blew off.
Some experts cautioned against assuming Biden’s use of the pardon power on his son would be a lasting image of his presidency, however. Some of his legislative achievements, such as the Inflation Reduction Act or CHIPS and Science Act, are likely to bear out investments in the years to come, and they pointed to his work restoring international alliances between Trump terms as potentially consequential.
“Even though he didn’t stop Trump from returning to power, he did defeat Trump. He did stand up for the rule of law. And he did, for most of his presidency, he did attempt to restore trust and faith in the electoral process,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian and professor at George Washington University.
“He may well be remembered as the last president of the post-world War II era where America was interventionist and believed in international alliances and committed to being a leader for better and for worse around the world,” Dallek said. “And I don’t know that the pardon will change even his standing up for democratic norms in general.”
