Just because Hunter Biden received a pardon from his father does not mean he had to accept it.
Had he refused it, President Biden’s disgraced son could have achieved at least a modicum of redemption, while lessening his father’s disgrace for pardoning his son after repeatedly pledging that he would not.
And that could have spared us all from listening to Biden sound like his predecessor-turned-successor whining about the supposed weaponization of the Justice Department.
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“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” the elder Biden said in a statement.
Back in 1833, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Wilson that the recipient of a presidential pardon had the right to refuse it.
“A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance,” the court ruled. “It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it is rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.”
Wilson was 24 when he and 35-year-old James Porter were convicted of robbing the mail coach from Philadelphia to Reading, Pennsylvania, on two occasions. Both were sentenced to death and Porter was hanged. But people who had the ear of President Andrew Jackson persuaded him to pardon Wilson, who looked even younger than his years.
Wilson offered no explanation in court, to the press, or the public why he declined a pardon even when facing the noose. A number of publications, including Smithsonian magazine, reported that he was subsequently hanged.
But those accounts failed to offer a specific date or location for the supposed execution. The Philadelphia Gazette reported that Wilson had in fact been spared the gallows and consigned to Cherry Hill State Prison—later renamed Eastern State Penitentiary penitentiary—until January of 1841, when President Martin Van Buren made him the first person to receive two presidential pardons. Wilson accepted the second one.
The only other people who appear to have declined a presidential pardon were city editor George Burdick and shipping news reporter William Curtin of the New York Tribune in 1914. The two took the Fifth Amendment when asked before a federal grand jury how they came to learn of a scheme to smuggle jewelry into the country without paying customs duties. President Woodrow Wilson (no relation to George) then granted them a blanket pardon of any possible violations of federal law, figuring they could hardly invoke the right not to incriminate themselves if they were immune from prosecution. Burdick and Curtin simply declined the pardon and again invoked the Fifth Amendment. A judge fined them $500 and ordered them jailed until they complied. The U.S. Supreme Court then stepped in and ordered them freed immediately.
The two newspaper guys appear to be the last to decline a presidential pardon, but it is still every recipient’s established right.
The next one should have come on Sunday, when President Biden signed an Executive Grant to Clemency. It read:
Be It Known, That This Day, I, Joseph R. Biden , President of the United States, Pursuant To My Powers Under Article II, Section 2. Clause 1 of the Constitution, Have Granted Unto
ROBERT HUNTER BIDEN
A Full and Unconditional Pardon
For THOSE OFFENSES against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.
Affixed to the bottom left of the document was a seal reading:
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.
In his accompanying statement, President Biden essentially said that he was politicizing the Department of Justice because it had been politicized. Hunter Biden’s attorney cited the pardon in filing a motion on Monday to dismiss the indictment to which he had been found guilty following a six-day trial in June 2024. Special Prosecutor David Weiss asked the court to deny the motion.
“There is no binding authority which requires dismissal of an indictment after a defendant receives a pardon,” a reply by Weiss’ office said. “The Government does not challenge that the defendant has been the recipient of an act of mercy. That does not mean the grand jury’s decision to charge him, based on a finding of probable cause, should be wiped away as if it never occurred.”
The reply continued, “The Executive Branch that charged Defendant is headed by that sitting President – Defendant’s father. The Attorney General heading the DOJ was appointed by and reports to Defendant’s father. And that Attorney General appointed the Special Counsel who made the challenged charging decision in this case – while Defendant’s father was still the sitting President.”
In sum, “Defendant’s claim is effectively that his own father targeted him for being his son, a claim that is nonsensical under the facts here.”
But on Sunday, the father had gone ahead and used the debunked claim that his son had been unfairly targeted for political reasons. Never mind that the Form 4473 handgun application, on which Hunter Biden falsely attested that he was not using illegal drugs, happens to be a core element of the Brady Handgun Bill of 1993 that his father helped shepherd into law. Sure, precious few people are prosecuted for that particular lie on a 4473. But one reason for that is that even fewer people provide evidence like the photos stored on Hunter’s laptop.
To make it all worse, President Biden only issued 26 pardons and commutations during his four years in office. Trump did 237 during four years. Barack Obama did 1,927 in two terms.
In November, Biden pardoned two turkeys, but no people. He then began December by granting a pardon his son should have saved him from issuing.
Had Hunter exercised his right to decline a pardon and take whatever was coming to him after being convicted by a fair and impartial jury, the president soon to reclaim office would have a harder time explaining away his own indictments and conviction as simple lawfare.
But then again, Hunter is Hunter.
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