Democrats
Sharply Criticize Biden’s Pardon of His Son
Lawmakers in
the president’s own party, many of them moderates, said his decision to pardon
his son was selfish and would further damage Americans’ waning faith in
democracy and the rule of law.
Maya C.
Miller
By Maya C.
Miller
Reporting
from Washington
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/us/politics/biden-pardon-hunter-democrats-reaction.html
Dec. 2, 2024
Several
Democrats in Congress spoke out on Monday against President Biden’s decision to
issue a broad pardon of his son Hunter Biden, criticizing the action as one
that would further erode Americans’ already waning faith in democracy and the
rule of law.
Many
Democratic lawmakers, particularly progressives, have defended Mr. Biden’s move
as the justified action of a concerned father who fears that President-elect
Donald J. Trump will abuse his power to follow through on his threats to seek
retribution against his rivals. But others, especially moderate members of
Congress, said the president’s decision to pardon Hunter Biden — which he
repeatedly vowed he would not do — would cause further damage to democratic
norms.
“I’m
disappointed this was the decision that he landed on here,” Representative
Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, said of President Biden in an interview. “He
promised he would not do this. I think it will make it harder for us going
forward when we talk about upholding democracy.”
Representative
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington, said the president’s move
offered proof of a two-tiered justice system that treated the wealthy and
politically powerful differently from everyday Americans.
“The
President made the wrong decision,” she wrote on social media. “No family
should be above the law.”
In his own
post on social media, Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, said Mr.
Biden’s “decision put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes
Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.”
In an
interview, Mr. Bennet compared the pardon to Mr. Biden’s decision to wait until
the final months of his re-election bid to drop out of the race, calling it an
example of the president’s “putting his personal interest ahead of his
responsibility to the country.”
Many
progressives have rallied behind Mr. Biden.
“Way to go
Joe!” Representative Jasmine Crockett, a first-term Democrat from Texas, said
on MSNBC over the weekend. “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.”
But critics
of Mr. Biden’s decision were not confined to the party’s moderate wing.
“President
Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is, as the action of a loving father,
understandable — but as the action of our nation’s chief executive, unwise,”
Senator Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont and a progressive, said in a
statement.
And Senator
Gary Peters of Michigan, who headed Democrats’ Senate campaign arm, called Mr.
Biden’s decision to pardon his son “wrong.”
“A
president’s family and allies shouldn’t get special treatment,” Mr. Peters said
in a statement. “This was an improper use of power, it erodes trust in our
government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests.”
But Senator
Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber and a longtime
colleague of the president’s, was among Mr. Biden’s defenders on Monday. Mr.
Durbin said he understood the president’s “humane” decision, saying that Hunter
Biden had been “exploited” for political purposes.
“Joe Biden
is many things, but I can say for certain he is a loving father,” Mr. Durbin
said in an interview. The president, he added, “would gladly go into that jail
cell himself to spare his son that experience.”
Peter Baker
and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
Maya C.
Miller covers Congress and is a Times Fellow, a program for journalists early
in their careers. She is based in Washington. More about Maya C. Miller
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