Even if Joe Biden pardons his whole administration, Americans deserve the truth. The pardoning of Hunter Biden throws open the possibility of many more to come during this presidency’s last five weeks. Even if key people are exonerated before the fact, Republicans shouldn’t be dissuaded from investigating. Far more important than punishing the guilty is that the truth be told and that, if wrongs have been committed, they should never happen again.
At the heart of Hunter Biden’s unquestionable guilt and Joe Biden’s duplicitous pardon lies the infamous laptop. It is a microcosm of Hunter’s sordid career and special breaks. After its October 2020 discovery, it was dismissed by the administration, Democrats, and establishment media.
Then an election and almost four years later, it was not only accepted as authentic (January 2024) but became evidence in the government’s successful prosecution of Hunter on felony gun charges (June 11) — and almost certainly would have been in the tax cases had Hunter not pled guilty. Just two days later, Joe Biden said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter and was “satisfied” his son had a fair trial. Again, an election and less than six months later, Joe Biden ended the saga by pardoning his son.
For months, Democrats and their establishment media allies had been laying the foundation for delegitimizing any Republican investigations should Trump win the presidency. Wrapped in their overall campaign to demonize Trump, Democrats accused him of plotting retribution against his political enemies. Various members of the self-styled elite loudly proclaimed their endangerment from a Trump victory.
What Democrats meant their strategy to do was to discredit any future investigations of the Biden administration’s abuses of power — such as its conduct during COVID and its open border policy — before they could get underway. And to justify Biden’s pardons to avoid them.
The problem is that Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter jumped the gun and tipped the hand. Hunter was hardly a political martyr facing retribution; rather, he was completely guilty. His pardon was therefore purely personal. And Joe Biden didn’t let breaking his word to do it stop him; rather than rising above politics, Joe sank beneath it.
With a stroke of his presidential pen, Joe Biden undermined Democrats’ delegitimization strategy by delegitimizing the pardon process itself.
Joe Biden’s explanation for doing so was hortatory hypocrisy. Once more, he struck the tired pose of Lunch Bucket Joe, shamelessly saying: “For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth” — even as he was breaking his repeated promises to not pardon. He claimed that Hunter was the victim of political persecution, even though Joe had earlier said his son’s trial was fair — and that the convictions had been secured by the special counsel his own attorney general had appointed.
To this insult to the American people’s intelligence, Joe Biden added injury in the pardon itself. It was not simply a pardon for the crimes he had been convicted of and pled guilty to; it was a ten-year blanket pardon for anything Hunter could have done in that period.
This willingness to say anything to justify pardoning everything opens the door for countless pardons over Joe Biden’s five remaining weeks in office. Anyone and everyone in his administration could seemingly be a potential pardon recipient.
Democrats will say, should such pardons come about, that they close the door on future Republican investigations. Instead, Republicans should see President Biden’s blatantly political pardons as increasing their incentive to investigate.
Republicans could, and should, investigate without listening to cries of retribution from Democrats. If President Biden’s pardons come, as the evidence of Hunter Biden’s pardon argues they will, then there will not be the possibility that those found to have been involved in this administration’s numerous scandals will personally suffer for them. (RELATED: Well, Then, by All Means, Let’s Put Hunter Under Oath Now)
So, what then is the purpose of investigations? Truth. Truth has always been more important than punishment in scandal investigations. It is also important so average Americans can see that Joe Biden’s politicization of the presidency is not itself immune. That such politicization cannot, even with a president’s final pardoning power, subvert justice forever.
Americans have a crisis of confidence in our institutions. A 2024 Gallup poll showed that just 26 percent had a “great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency, just 18 percent for newspapers, 12 percent for television news, and 9 percent for Congress.
They do so for good reason. For years, they have been lied to by elites — the current administration, the Democrat Party in general, and the establishment media — that have imposed on them burdens from which these elites have insulated themselves. It is time that Americans are given the truth and not the gaslighting to which they have been subjected for too long. Even if President Biden seeks to pardon truth from view.
J.T. Young is the author of the new book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left, from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, and OMB, and representing a Fortune 20 company.
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