Biden destroys what little legacy he had with pardons of family

OPINION:

When the president of the United States was mulling pardons for family members and administration officials, lawmakers were aghast.

“It’s an effort not only to prospectively pardon people for things they have not yet been charged with and may never be charged with, but also it’s the president’s own family,” Rep. Adam Schiff of California said.

“The president’s reportedly asking his staff whether he can issue preemptive pardons for himself his family members,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said. “Here’s a simple answer: No. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority.”

Of course, that was years ago, when President Trump was considering pardons for his own family and administration officials. The idea was so horrible that even Joe Biden, not yet president, took issue. “Well, it concerns me in terms of what kind of precedence it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice. You’re not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons.”

Well, that was another big lie, wasn’t it? “My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” Mr. Biden wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.

“That is why I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens, and Francis W. Biden,” he continued. “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”

Uh, huh? If they didn’t commit any crimes, why pardon them? “The family took in $27 million from our adversaries around the world,” said Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which conducted a lengthy investigation into the family.

“What we said in our investigation was that we found 10 different Biden family members, including Joe Biden, profited from the influence peddling schemes. The money would come from a wire from a foreign adversary, usually a foreign oligarch,” Mr. Comer said Tuesday. “They never could say, even when we brought them in for depositions and interviews, what they actually did to receive the money. Then we found, going through their bank records, that they had another $8 million in loans that they never paid back, never paid any interest on or anything. So that’s 35 million.”

So there was one last totally dishonest act left in Mr. Biden after all. After he and top Democrats repeatedly recited a “no one is above the law” mantra, he made his family members literally above the law, unable to be charged for any crimes concerning … anything. And then he claimed that the blanket pardons should not be “misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”

In addition to pardons for his son and multiple family members, Mr. Biden on Monday issued pardons for Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, members of Congress who investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and others he said are under threat of being “baselessly” targeted by political opponents.

“These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But these are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” he said.

Oh, the hypocrisy. Mr. Biden’s Justice Department and his minion of friendly — but completely dirty — prosecutors around the country used the legal institutions to attack Mr. Trump at every turn. After months and millions of dollars wasted, several cases were dismissed, and for the 34 felonies on which he was convicted, the court delivered no punishment at all — no jail time, no fines, nothing.

So there it is: the final ignominy for Joe Biden. With a last-minute flurry of pardons for his family and friends, he has cemented the title of dirtiest president ever. His supposed code of honor that he claimed to live by is forever dead — and we now know it was never alive.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.