News
Why the Hunter Biden Pardon Is ‘Justified’ According to Legal Experts
President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is issuing a full pardon for his son Hunter Biden sent shockwaves throughout the media on Sunday, with many on the right expressing outrage and many on the left—although not all—defending his decision. Some legal experts, explaining why the charges should never have been brought, say Biden is right to issue the pardon even after having said he would not.
While many are looking at this through a political lens, not a legal one, President Biden explained both the political and legal aspects in his announcement.
“I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
Biden began by saying in his statement that, from “the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.”
The President did not explain just how far away he kept himself from the prosecution of his son.
READ MORE: ‘Any and All’: Trump’s Former Surgeon General Warns Republicans Will Own Disease Outbreaks
“Biden bent over backwards to keep his hands off this prosecution, at considerable cost to his family,” noted professor of law and former federal prosecutor Kim Wehle, writing at The Bulwark. “He did not remove or change the mandate of the Trump-appointed prosecutor handling the case, even as that prosecutor’s investigation was granted special counsel status last year.”
President Biden did allege that, without a full pardon, his opponents would continue to target Hunter Biden.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
Eric Holder, who served as the U.S. Attorney General during most of President Barack Obama’s two terms, weighed in on the Hunter Biden pardon.
“Here’s the reality. No [U.S. Attorney] would have charged this case given the underlying facts. After a 5 year investigation the facts as discovered only made that clear. Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been – fundamentally and more fairly – a declination. Pardon warranted,” he wrote, saying that the prosecutors should have declined to file charges.
“Ask yourself a vastly more important question,” Holder continued, mentioning Trump’s nominee to head the FBI. “Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s preeminent law enforcement investigative organization? Obvious answer: hell no.”
Other legal experts, including those who have made those very decisions of whether or not to charge someone, agree.
MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg served at the vaunted SDNY, the Southern District of New York Office of the U.S. Attorney.
“As SDNY Criminal Division Deputy Chief, I was responsible for approving charges and non-prosecution requests. I wouldn’t have approved Hunter Biden’s tax or gun cases. If Hunter’s last name wasn’t Biden, I don’t believe he would have been charged. His pardon is justified,” she wrote.
Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor for two decades, says she agrees with Greenberg.
“When I was Chief of the San Jose Branch of the US Attorney’s Office, I, too, was responsible for approving charging and declination decisions. I would not have approved any of the charges brought against Hunter Biden,” de la Vega wrote.
Civil liberties and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler responded to Greenberg, writing: “There’s even more than this going on. [Special Counsel] David Weiss WASN’T going to charge either of these (he hadn’t even investigated gun crime before Statutes of limitation expired). But he did bc of political pressure from House and Trump (and threats to his family). So the charges are problem.”
“Folks don’t seem to understand why Biden pardoned Hunter from 2014 to present,” Wheeler also wrote. “That’s because David Weiss had repeatedly decided he couldn’t charge Burisma allegations from 2014 and 2015, but Kash Patel and others were insistent he should be charged for something w/Burisma.”
“Effectively, a prosecutor twice decided that 2014-2015 — the heart of Trump’s claims about Hunter Biden — couldn’t be charged, but with Patel coming in at FBI, Hunter had to expect that prosecutorial decision would be revisited,” she added.
Juliette Kayyem, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School/John F. Kennedy School of Government, writes, “True: Biden said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter. Also true: Whatever Biden said may have been legitimately superseded by intervening events, such as Patel’s nomination to the FBI.”
RELATED: ‘Will Cost Lives’: Ex-FDA Chief Warns Trump Picks Could Lead to ‘Grim’ Disease Resurgence
And she scolded the press: “If all reporters are tweeting is that Biden changed his mind, perhaps do some reporting as to why.”
A CNN national security analyst, Kayyem predicted on-air on Sunday (video below) that Trump’s FBI pick, Kash Patel, is “going to go after Trump’s political enemies, likely the Biden family, the Cheneys, people who had been in the involved with the January 6th. Committee, just simply to sort of scorch the earth against him.”
“I’m not saying they’ll end up in jail, but he’ll start investigations simply to sort of whitewash Trump’s involvement with incitement, illegalities, Russia, whatever it is,” she explained. “So that’s that’s we know that’s going to happen and that’s why Biden has to consider whether he’s going to pardon his son at this stage. But what we do know is Trump’s not messing around.”
On Sunday, Law & Crime reported that, “Hunter Biden’s legal team released a report over the weekend that included a ‘stark warning’ that the first son may face retribution at the hands of incoming President-elect Donald Trump. With the election of the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president, the ‘threat against Hunter is real,’ his lawyers claim. The report was released on Saturday ahead of President Joe Biden issuing a full federal pardon for his son on Sunday night.”
“’Here, in one place, is the complete and reprehensible history of the political persecution of Hunter Biden,’ one of Biden’s lawyers, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement,” Law & Crime reported, pointing to a “52-page report, obtained by the Washington Post and Washington Examiner, [that] laid out the criminal prosecutions that led to convictions for Hunter Biden.”
“This is a seven-year saga propelled by an unrelenting political desire to use a son to hurt his father,” Lowell also said.
Watch the video below or at this link.
“Biden only has a few weeks to pardon his son. All I know is that Trump isn’t messing around (with the Patel pick).”
I spoke on @cnn this afternoon about what Patel would mean for Biden. This evening, Biden pardoned his son. pic.twitter.com/THJ93gDPn7— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) December 2, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Don’t Play Games You Can’t Win’: Gas Analyst Warns Trump Will ‘Lose Miserably’ on Tariffs
Image via Reuters
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
