Watergate was a political scandal of unprecedented scale, which revealed the seedy underbelly of political espionage rampant in the halls of government. While the whole ordeal was wildly damaging to the public perception of government, if former President Richard Nixon had faced repercussions for his actions then the American people might have regained some level of faith in the system. But when Nixon’s vice president, Gerald Ford, was sworn in following Nixon’s resignation, he pardoned Nixon for his crimes instead of letting justice have its way. It could be argued that Ford’s act was more damaging to the integrity of the U.S. government than Watergate itself. Today, we find ourselves in a very similar situation.
This was an especially critical time for the Democratic Party. With a Republican governing trifecta intent on cleaning house imminent, now would’ve been the optimal time to put in place lasting legal protections for the American people or use presidential pardons to free those who’ve been unjustly convicted. But through it all, Democrats have maintained their desire to do things by the book and to prove that they have the moral high ground over the Republican Party.
President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, on Sunday for three federal charges of lying about his drug use when buying a firearm — drug use which would have made him ineligible for gun ownership in the first place. For months, Biden’s team has strongly asserted that he will not pardon his son. But now we need to deal with the consequences of the Democratic Party’s decision to forego the last of their dignity in the wake of resounding electoral defeat.
Democrats have already begun to deflect the obvious hypocrisy and ethical concerns of pardoning Hunter Biden by pointing fingers at President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal status. The criminal activity of one does not diminish that of the other, and Trump should especially not be the yardstick by which we measure morality.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, representing Texas’ 30th congressional district, said, “Let me be the first to congratulate the president for deciding to do this, because at the end of the day, we know that we have a 34-count convicted felon about to walk into the White House.”
Despite the best intentions of the Democratic Party, throwing Trump’s felon status in the face of the American people evidently did nothing to hurt his chances in the presidential election. Trump was lawfully and democratically elected the 47th president of the United States, and no amount of spotlighting his conviction status will change that. The votes are in, and the majority of American citizens made it clear they don’t care if the president is a felon. To use that status to justify self-serving political moves on the part of Biden is ridiculous, and is frankly insulting to those who voted against Trump in the interest of preserving democracy and the rule of law.
Biden could have used his pardon power to save Robert Roberson or in any other cases with a preponderance of evidence showing wrongful conviction.
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden said.
Many fathers around the country also have to deal with the turmoil of having their sons over-sentenced for petty crimes, and Biden’s complete lack of regard for those cases makes his plea for understanding unappealing.
Biden has opened the floodgates for Trump’s new administration. Trump has already floated the idea of using the same pardon power for those convicted for their actions on Jan. 6. While the idea of pardoning violent agitators en masse is frightening enough, Trump now has justification to pardon whichever of his supporters he feels like, at all levels of government. Trump’s lawyers have also already cited the pardon as grounds for why his other legal cases should be dropped.
Following the landmark Supreme Court decision this year in Trump v. United States, the usual presidential immunity for criminal convictions has been extended to include all of the president’s official acts. Trump is immune to criminal prosecution for anything he does as president and now has full reign to abuse his pardon power to free anyone under him for federal charges as well. Decades of conservative machinations have led to this moment, with the unveiling of an all-powerful unitary executive immune to prosecution and in full control of not only the executive branch, but of Congress and the Supreme Court as well.
It’s a bleak picture, but not hopeless. With full conservative control of all federal branches of government, it’s up to the states to stand as the strongholds of resistance against executive overreach.
Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes, leaving states and civil suits free and clear. It’s up to the individual states to prosecute bad action where they can and to try to hold up the integrity of the union itself. Legal action, while costly and time-consuming, is still a viable tool for holding the guilty accountable, and while the opposition to Trump reconfigures itself over the course of the next four years, lawsuits will have to do. It’s a slippery slope from restraint to abuse, and now Republicans have every incentive to take advantage of Biden’s actions as justification for their future political and legal actions.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Noah Zaldivar at [email protected].
