Biden has an opportunity to add something else to his legacy – a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to clemency in the final days of his presidency.
There’s an age-old concept – in crisis, opportunity – that should be deployed as President Joe Biden winds down his administration by signing off on pardons, commutations and other acts of clemency.
By now, you must have heard the cacophony of controversy after Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden on Sunday, giving him a get-out-of-jail-free card on convictions for federal gun and tax charges.
Biden, who had long promised to stay clear of his son’s cases and respect the outcome, has been castigated for a solid week by Republicans and Democrats for such a blatant flip-flop at the end of his term, when there is little political price for him to pay.
Biden owns all that. Some allies see him as justified. But plenty of people see it as a black mark on his half-century of public service.
That’s done. Condemnation won’t change anything in this crisis Biden created for himself. So what comes next?
Biden has an opportunity here to add something else to his legacy – a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to clemency in the final 45 days of his presidency.Democrats in Congress say don’t stop at Hunter Biden
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat who has advocated for reforming how clemency is granted in criminal cases, sent Biden a letter two weeks ago – before he pardoned his son – calling on the president to lean into his clemency authority in the closing weeks of his administration.
Sixty-six of her Democratic House colleagues signed on.
Pressley told me she agreed with Biden’s rationale for his son’s pardon, that he had been unfairly targeted for prosecution because of who his dad is. But she noted that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of The Pardon Attorney has a backlog of more than 10,000 people seeking some sort of clemency.
