Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter disrupts Democrats’ post-election accounts: ANALYSIS

President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter, drops a bombshell into his party’s post-election soul-searching.

Democrats are still sifting through the rubble of their loss to President-elect Donald Trump last month, with some in the party blaming their reputation – justified or not – as elitists out of touch with the concerns of ordinary voters while cozying up to others rich. and well-connected allies.

Now, after months of vowing he wouldn’t and maintaining that the justice system had treated Trump appropriately, Biden is dropping his son’s allegedly politicized convictions on tax and gun charges to fire, sparking a warning that the move reinforces perceptions that the party does not deliver. his word and plays by his own rules.

“It literally reinforces the challenge Democrats faced in the election, which is elites talking to elites to convince each other that they’re right. Well, you can’t get any more elite than that ” said Chris Kofinis, Democratic strategist. and former aide to Sen. Joe Manchin, IW.Va.

“It’s not about forgiving the son. What about everyone’s son?” Kofinis added. “If you’re considering taking this kind of dramatic action that will benefit just one person in your family, you have a responsibility to go out there and say why. But you can’t say why, that’s because that justice “The system is rigged, because you just spent the last four years saying it wasn’t rigged for Trump, but it is rigged for your son?”

Hunter Biden had been convicted of federal gun charges after lying about his drug use on a gun application and pleaded guilty to nine tax-related charges, including three felonies.

The president’s announcement on Sunday evening had the effect of a bombshell at the end of a holiday weekend. In it, Biden insisted his son had been “treated differently” after “several of my political opponents in Congress incited them to attack me and oppose my election.”

The pardon is also particularly broad, covering all “offenses against the United States that he committed or may have committed or participated in” from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024, beyond related charges on guns and taxes.

Republicans quickly cried foul over the move, lambasting it as a manipulation of the judiciary, especially after Biden said for months that he would not use his power to intervene in his son’s legal troubles.

“Joe Biden lied from start to finish,” said House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. wrote in an article on. “It is unfortunate that, rather than revealing their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability.”

“Tonight’s pardon is a mistake. It proves to the American people that there is a two-tiered justice system,” added Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, who will be the No. 2 Republican in the Senate in the next Congress.

Democratic lawmakers were more muted on the pardon Sunday evening, but expressed their opposition more clearly Monday afternoon.

“Democrats should have been in favor of reforming and reducing the pardon power from day one of the Biden presidency. As a father, I sympathize with President Biden, but we must be the party of reform, whether it’s the archaic pardon power, opposition to super PACs, or broad pardon measures. war powers,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said the.

“President Biden’s decision to pardon his son was wrong. A president’s family and allies should not receive special treatment. This was an inappropriate use of power, it erodes trust in our government and encourages others to bend justice to suit their interests,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., added.

Now, some in the party warned ABC News, Democrats risked being seen as carrying out the same behavior they warned Trump against before his inauguration, making their campaign rhetoric about integrity of the justice system only applies to one side of the political divide. .

“It’s a bit of playing with [voters]” said one Democratic pollster. “The bottom line, to the extent that there is anything left, for the average independent voter is that both sides are just playing games with each other . They don’t think about this rhetoric at all. »

The White House sought damage control Monday, placing blame on Republicans who will have unified control of Washington starting next month and who have hammered Hunter Biden’s legal woes and business dealings for years.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden granted the pardon in part “because it didn’t look like his political opponents were going to let it go.”

“They would continue to attack his son. That’s what he believed,” she added, refusing to speculate on the political consequences of this decision.

“Two things could be true. You can believe in the Justice Department system, and you can also believe that the process was politically affected,” she insisted.

The pardon controversy comes as some Democrats partly blame Biden’s decision to run for re-election as the reason for Harris’ defeat.

While many Democrats expressed empathy for Biden’s position as a father, they suggested it was another reason to put the president in the rearview mirror as the party develops a new playbook for the he future – a separation that, some hoped, could minimize any long term. -term benefits.

“I think the party is already going to move away from him so deeply and so completely that I don’t know if it will sever that connection between Biden and the future Democratic Party, more or less than it already would have been. If whatever it is, this can speed it up,” said a senior Democratic strategist.

“I think it’s politically stupid,” the person said. “It makes us look bad, and it makes us feel like we don’t have a moral high ground, and we either have to admit that or we have to admit that we have to stop being so preachy. I think “It’s bad policy, but I don’t know exactly what the repercussions will be.”

That doesn’t mean Democrats, skeptical of the long-term implications, are happy with the move.

Nearly every Democrat who spoke to ABC News was concerned that Biden’s pardon would open the door for Trump to protect people who they believe do not deserve pardons. And to ward off any prolonged fallout as part of a broader reshuffle, even if notional, some have suggested that strong denunciation from party leaders could go a long way.

“It’s not going to eliminate it, because Biden is the president of the United States,” the Democratic pollster said. “But if Democrats ever hope to reinvent themselves in a post-Biden future, they’ll have to start denouncing Biden now when it’s hard, not in the future when it’s easier.”