Stats guru Nate Silver slammed those defending President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter, saying the “correct behavior” is instead to call it out.
The Democratic president on Sunday said he’d signed a pardon for Hunter—who faced potential prison time for felony gun and tax convictions—after repeatedly promising he wouldn’t do so. In a statement, he justified the full and unconditional pardon in part by claiming his son had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” as part of “an effort to break Hunter.”
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Silver, the founder of polling site FiveThirtyEight, wrote in a Twitter thread Sunday that “the same people who were mad about my takes that Biden needed to step aside are mad about my pointing out his obvious hypocrisy.”
“I guess if you forgive him for quite possibly throwing an election to Trump you’ll forgive him for anything,” he added.
Silver last month called for Biden to resign and allow Vice President Kamala Harris to take over until Donald Trump’s inauguration, questioning whether Biden remained “competent to be president.” Silver was also highly critical of Biden’s role in Harris’ election defeat, writing on his Substack newsletter, Silver Bulletin, that Trump’s victory was “mostly Biden’s fault.”
“Voters were smart enough to see through this s--t. I voted for Harris. But that’s why I believe in democracy more than I believe in the Democratic Party,” Silver wrote in his Twitter thread. “You’re not fooling anyone but yourselves.”
He also urged those defending the pardoning to “please stop thinking of yourself as a defender of ‘democracy’ or norms or the rule of law.”
“You’re just a garden-variety partisan dressing yourself up in sheep’s clothing. And voters are smart enough to see this even if you aren’t,” Silver wrote, pointing out that the White House “flagrantly lied” about Biden’s intention not to pardon Hunter even after the election.
Asked on Nov. 7—two days after Election Day—if Biden had “any intention” of pardoning Hunter, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre answered: “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
Silver said he “could be persuaded if you wanted to tell me that politics is just bloodsport,” but “these people are convinced of their own moral superiority when anyone with half a clue knows otherwise.”
“I’m not saying this is going to be the decisive issue of 2026/28 etc.,” he added, referring to upcoming midterm and presidential elections. “Probably second tier. But both the ethically *and politically* correct behavior is to call it out. Stop being so afraid of your own shadow.”
Biden is not the first president to use executive power to pardon a family member. Trump, at the end of his first term, pardoned Charles Kushner—the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—who in 2004 pleaded guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of lying to the Federal Election Commission, and one count of retaliating against a cooperating witness.
The cooperating witness was his own sister. Kushner admitted as part of his plea that he’d hired a sex worker to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged for the encounter to be filmed, and then had the tape to be sent to his sibling. Trump on Saturday announced that he’d picked Charles Kushner to serve as U.S. ambassador to France.
In 2001, Bill Clinton also pardoned a family member—his half-brother, Roger Clinton. The son of the then-president’s mother and stepfather, Roger Clinton had pleaded guilty in 1985 to selling cocaine to an undercover cop and was locked up for a year. The pardon helped to clear his criminal record, according to The Washington Post.
