Biden will leave office soon, with a cloud of suspicion and a shadow of contempt. Pictured: President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. Photo Credit: Joe Biden/X.
The corrupt nature of President Joe Biden has escaped the legacy media’s scrutiny for the past half-century and more, but the chickens came home to roost earlier this month. With about a month left in his term, Biden will complete one of the most ignominious presidencies in recent times. Having declared his candidacy as a return to normalcy and decency, Biden has proven to be a man in decline and one who should long ago have turned in his reputation for a scrub and polish. The details of the recent pardon of his son reveal not only his hypocrisy, deceitfulness, and selfishness, but the transparent nature of his career in public service. Good old Scranton Joe’s record of blatant corruption and selfish use of power has long been unreported, but widely understood. As Victor Davis Hanson writes in American Greatness (Dec. 9, 2024): “Given the Biden suppression of the justice system and the media’s complicity in hiding the Biden family’s criminality, it is quite possible that in the next few years, disinterested prosecutors might finally expose Hunter Biden’s long-suppressed, sordid career. And that could mean possible criminal exposure for three generations of Bidens.”
The fourth estate has culpability in this sordid tale that began in Delaware but peaked over the past twelve years. Beginning in about 2012 the press chose to bury stories about Biden that would have long ago ruled him out of ever being president. The pardon issued on Dec. 1, 2024, states, “A full and unconditional pardon for those offences against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period January 1st, 2014 through December 1st, 2024, including but not limited to all offences charged or prosecuted, including any that have resulted in convictions by special counsel David C. Weiss, as well as any charges in testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name and caused the pardon to be recorded with the Department of Justice.”
Why go back to 2014? Hunter Biden served as a bagman collecting favours in the form of cash that has helped Joe Biden enrich his brothers James and Frank and his sister Val. This would have come to light in 2020 if the Hunter Biden laptop story had not been dismissed by a press intent on ensuring then-president Donald Trump could not win a second term. The email and text messages confirming these acts were held on the famous Hunter laptop. These messages would have detailed cash payments from China to Ukraine, much held in trust for the “big guy.”
The 2014 date also coincides with Hunter Biden’s appointment to Burisma, a holding company based in Kyiv, Ukraine for a group of energy exploration and production companies. Hunter has no background in energy or the oil industry, but as the son of the vice president, he could wield influence. He could also collect on that connection. In using the pardon, Ben Shapiro noted that “(Joe Biden) is…attempting to wipe the books of his son’s Foreign Agent Registration Act violations, of his corruption, of any possible investigation into the money that passed hands between foreign countries and Hunter Biden, and then was held by Hunter Biden for the big guy. That is the goal here…obvious political corruption of the most unseemly sort.”
Biden’s statement pardoning his son claimed he would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making. If that were true, he would not have granted a full-on pardon charging his own Justice Department with selectively prosecuting his son. Let me defer to the comments of Charles C. Cooke at National Review who reminded listeners in the Dec. 3 podcast of The Editors that the charges against the younger Biden were “…not brought by a rogue agent, but by the head of the DOJ that Biden chose himself. The jury did not see this case as a close one. And despite many of the arguments to the contrary, it is not especially unusual for somebody to be prosecuted for these crimes.” Cooke goes further, pointing out that Biden’s only legislative contribution to the nation occurred in 1986, 1990, and 1994 “…when he helped write and enhance the penalties for crimes that pertained to drugs and firearms.” Let’s recall that Hunter’s conviction for three federal gun violations has put many minority men in prison for far less. The press howls when Republican governors do not go soft on crime, but Joe Biden, going soft for his son while the downtrodden pay the piper results in a whimper and then a soundless sigh.
Hanson’s turn of phrase best reflects the diminishing nature of Joe Biden the president and politician. “This unprecedented pardon is not aberrant. It is characteristic of the left’s recent contempt for the rule of law.” The sweeping nature of the pardon, possibly only comparable to Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter’s pardon of thousands of draft dodgers exempts Hunter from any federal crimes in the last ten years that may yet turn up. In effect, blanket exemption from federal prosecution.
Why did Biden feel it necessary to offer a wholesale pardon? As Hanson notes Hunter likely faced jail time and heavy fines for obvious and cold-hearted tax evasion of millions of dollars from sources Congressional investigators are still unwinding. “The Biden family’s plea that Hunter was ‘addicted’ is a pathetic excuse. The president expects the American people to believe his lie that a supposedly temporarily non compos mentis Hunter was too drug-addled to remember to pay his taxes but clear enough to shake down millions of dollars in largess for generations of the Biden family syndicate.” Heeding more directly, Hanson points out the hypocrisy of the left-leaning media when they claim that “…no one is ever jailed for feloniously lying on a federal affidavit to buy a handgun.” Once again, the journos charged with reporting the news decide to commentate. Many average citizens go to jail for perjury or failure to complete a mandated federal background check every day. The plan behind these pardons and the ones that may come for other Biden family members are designed to protect Joe Biden.
The ten-year window includes the last two years of Biden’s vice presidency when even the Obama Administration became frustrated with his sloppy grift. Accounting for about twenty million dollars becomes difficult and embarrassing. Hanson suggests questions will arise, “…where (did the) the money come from, what it was for, where it went, and whether anyone fully paid federal and state income taxes on these foreign cash infusions.” Who will provide the answers if the actors are all pardoned?
Complicating this further, the White House team (was Biden even present?) decided to float a trial balloon that would include more pardons for a group of controversial figures, associates, and supporters who have not been indicted but who the Administration fear the new Trump Justice Department will prosecute. Beyond his promise, made public six times, that he would not pardon Hunter, the media gleefully reported that this displayed Biden’s “reverence for the rule of law” comparing Trump’s willingness to run roughshod over norms. Supposedly Trump, facing five criminal and civil indictments looked lawless while Biden would even put family above the law. The media rarely noted the connection between these prosecutions and the Biden Department of Justice.
Will Biden offer a series of pardons to further protect a hypocritical left from answering to the Justice system they claimed Donald Trump would use to carry out retribution against his enemies? What about Anthony Fauci’s likely lies under oath about subsidizing research for gain of function research in Wuhan? Or Mark Milley who probably broke the chain of command? John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, and James Clapper, the unholy trinity of intelligence and law enforcement officers presently serving as media consultants bear watching. Hanson asserts, “They admittedly lied either under congressional oath or to federal investigators and did so with complete exemption.” Biden will leave office soon, with a cloud of suspicion, a shadow of contempt, and a welcome good riddance.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
