Earlier this week, President Joe Biden issued an open-ended pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. The pardon covers 11 years and covers crimes he either committed “or may have committed” during that time. This pardon sets a dangerous precedent for future presidents and does not improve our coarsened politics.
In his statement about the pardon, Biden claimed that his political opponents politicized his son’s cases. While this may be true, Biden pardoning his son for all of his crimes was not the answer. The decision to include any future prosecution of crimes committed during this time is an abuse of power and an expansion of executive authority.
The presidential power to grant pardons stems from the “royal prerogative of mercy” of the British Monarchy. The Founding Fathers never intended for the country’s chief executive to excuse the criminal actions of family and friends or foster a climate of consequence-free criminality.
Biden’s pardon is far from singular. Instead, it’s a continuation of the increasing abuse of the presidential pardon power. Other presidents have used the power to exonerate real criminals on purely political grounds, such as Richard Nixon’s pardon of Jimmy Hoffa and George H. W. Bush’s pardon of those responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal.
More recently, President-elect Donald Trump issued a host of similar pardons just before leaving office in 2020. These pardons included Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying about having contact with Russians; Roger Stone, who was convicted of witness tampering and other crimes; and Paul Manafort, who was convicted of several crimes, including failure to disclose his business dealings in Ukraine and other places.
Trump also pardoned Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father, who orchestrated a plot to retaliate against his brother-in-law. Trump chose Kushner to join his cabinet, along with several nominees with questionable pasts, such as Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Pam Bondi.
Equality under the law—the notion that those who make and enforce the law must also be subject to it—is a core tenet of liberalism. When presidents repurpose an instrument of mercy to subvert that value, it diminishes us all. No one is above the law in a true democracy. Project Liberal fights to preserve that principle and opposes any actions that erode it.