The president’s son was facing years in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges and being convicted of gun charges related to his drug addiction.
It came as a surprise that President Biden unconditionally pardoned his son Hunter, a convicted felon, after repeatedly vowing that he would not. For the past few months, each time Biden or his press secretary was asked whether a pardon was in the cards, they both emphatically said no.
So much for one of the president’s favorite lines, “I give you my word as a Biden.”
Hunter, who was facing a potential sentence of years in prison for tax evasion and lying on a federal firearms application, is now free to pursue his career as a middling painter of overpriced art.
I admit that when I first heard the pardon news, I thought, “Good for you, Joe! Why should you follow the rules when no one on Planet Trump does? Let the people who voted to return a sex-offending, defaming, defrauding felon to the White House get a tiny taste of their own medicine.”
On second thought, however, it’s more complicated than that.
How can any of us be outraged at the way Trump and those in his circle seem immune from the consequences of their malign actions if we applaud Biden’s pardon of his son for crimes he has either been convicted of or pleaded guilty to?
How can we be outraged that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner received $2 billion from the murderous Saudis if we think it’s perfectly fine for Hunter Biden to be paid millions of dollars for sitting on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that was under investigation for corruption while his father was vice president and overseeing White House policy on Ukraine?
The real outrage is the general lack of accountability for the illegal, unethical or immoral behavior of children born into wealth and privilege whose only “talents” are their ability to exploit their proximity to powerful people.
