New York Rep. Dan Goldman on Monday was questioned about his prediction last year that President Joe Biden wouldn’t pardon his son, Hunter.
On CNN’s News Central, anchor Brianna Keilar showed a clip of Goldman on the July 30, 2023, broadcast of ABC News’ This Week, which was taped after the younger Biden’s plea agreement for tax evasion and a firearms-related charge abruptly fell through.
In the clip, Goldman said a pardon would be a mistake, and that Biden wouldn’t do it.
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“I don’t think there’s any chance that President Biden is going to do that, unlike his predecessor, who pardoned all of his friends and anyone who had any access to him,” Goldman said.
“And I think you see that in this case where he kept on—and Merrick Garland kept on—a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney to investigate the president’s son,“ he continued. ”If there is not an indication of the independence of the Department of Justice beyond that, I don’t know what we could look for.”
On Monday, Keilar asked, “What does that feel like, watching yourself back then reassuring people that Biden was not going to issue a pardon for his son?”
Goldman first responded by saying that a pardon wouldn’t be necessary if the plea deal had gone through.
But Keilar reminded him that when he had made those comments, the agreement had already fallen apart.
“You took him at his word. So, what does that feel like, knowing that he’s gone back on it?” she asked again.
“Well, as I said,” Goldman replied, “I’m disappointed that after the plea fell through and it became clear about why it did, including Republican congressional intervention in this case, which made this case very unique and very different from any other case, I think that we all—perhaps I should have as well—recognized that this is not the normal prosecution."
Goldman added: “I said many times that if Hunter Biden were not Hunter Biden, he would never be charged with these crimes.”
The Democratic lawmaker then argued that, given Donald Trump’s threats to go after his perceived political enemies, a pardon makes sense.
“When you start to see what Donald Trump is planning to do with his Department of Justice and with his FBI, and the degree to which Hunter Biden has already been shamelessly attacked as a private citizen by Republicans,” Goldman explained, “I certainly understand why the president felt like this miscarriage of justice should not carry forward, and that he should not be at risk of retributive prosecution for political reasons, which is not the proper way to execute our rule of law.”
