Note: Behind the green door I have a post about college football and the war on tradition, a post about the bunker mentality in Washington. Due to holiday sloth there was not Sunday podcast. Subscribe here or here.
Over the long holiday weekend, President Joe Biden pardoned his crooked son Hunter, which surprised only the enemies of Donald Trump. Everyone else knew that the old man would not leave office without cleaning up the mess of his son. Say what you will about Joe Biden, but he loves his kids, perhaps too much. At some level, you must respect his family loyalty. There is an old world gangsterism about his willingness to help his family loot the political system.
An interesting part of the pardon is that it is not just a pardon for specific crimes that have been alleged by the Department of Justice. It is a blanket pardon for all things he may have done since 2014. This does not cover state crimes like murder, but outside of something extreme like that, it means he has been given the sort of get out of jail free card reserved for important gangsters. Henry Hill, of Goodfellas fame, was given this type of deal so he would become a rat.
If the 2014 start date seems important, that is because it is when the Biden family started feeding at the Ukraine trough. This was when the State Department engineered the Maidan coup that toppled the Ukrainian government of President Yanukovych, who refused to sign a deal with the EU. Once he was gone, the State Department helped put Petro Poroshenko in charge, who was followed by Volodymyr Zelensky. It is funny how so much has revolved around Ukraine for a decade.
That is what keeps many people in Washington up at night. Trump returning with a vengeance could mean him directing his people to investigate this long running scam called Project Ukraine. After all, it was his decision to question Ukraine that got him impeached, so Ukraine should be at the top of his vengeance list. That and the Ukrainians are desperate to cut a deal with Trump. There may be more Ukraine related pardons coming before January 20th.
That is what makes the timing of this interesting. Normally, the president leaving office signs the pardons on the way out the door or maybe over the Christmas holiday, in order to minimize attention. Bill Clinton pardoned the Jewish gangster Marc Rich on his last day in office. At the time, Rich was on the lamb hiding in Switzerland, but his wife was loading the Clinton family down with cash and prizes. Rich got rich as part of the looting of post-Soviet Russia, in case you are wondering.
As an aside, once word got out that Clinton had pardoned Marc Rich there was a hue and cry in Washington demanding that the incoming Republican administration investigate the matter. It was not just Republicans pretending to be outraged. All the beautiful people were playing along as well. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to look into it, but she took the job seriously, so she was replaced with James Comey, who could find nothing wrong with it.
That aside, it would have made much more sense for Biden to have done this on the way out the door, so it suggests this is part of a process. Everyone involved in the very dirty dealings in Ukraine must remain silent or face the prospect of Hunter Biden talking without fear of prosecution. Given how the Biden family has operated over the years, it probably means the next six weeks will be a pardon auction for those who ever did business with the Biden family.
The hilarious part of this is how the people we call the left are having a collective meltdown over this news. Twitter/X is now full of angry denunciations from Trump haters about how this makes them look stupid. The people who serious thought Kamala Harris was a good choice are also very vexed. They see this as proof that their girl boss was undermined by a conspiracy of pale penis people. They are now determined to make sure this never happens again. That should be fun.
Official Washington sees the problem with this pardon. They have been running with the narrative that Trump is a say anything to win dictator who will then grow a small mustache as soon as he returns to Washington. That sort of self-righteous indignation does not work when your side is issuing blanket pardons to family members and potentially anyone with a fat wallet. It is hard to claim Trump is corrupt when Joe Biden is putting pardons up on eBay.
In a way, it is a fitting end point for this long moral panic that kicked off during the Obama administration and came crashing down in this election. The subtext to all of it was that the good guys, the people launching the pogroms and panics, were surrounded by an invisible army loyal to Old Scratch. This required any means necessary to reveal and then defeat this threat to our democracy. It turns out that the threat was in the mirror all along.
Not only has the “crying Trump” run its course, but the moral panic that has been the basis of it has also run its course. The public no longer believes any of it now and the people doing the point and shriek are running out of energy. It also means there is no more money to be had from monetizing these panics. The relatively muted response to the election is the result of exhaustion. The Hunter Biden pardon is the start of a great sweep up from a party that went on far too long.
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let’s not forget how complicit the gop was in all this.
The Washington Generals of American political theater.
A comprehensive audit of the Ukraine grift would show Republicans like McConnell got comparative crumbs (millions vs. tens of millions), but given how the GOP allegedly negotiates on everything else, that itself was a triumph for them. The same probably took place with the Covid plunder, which likely was far larger. Like with the Keating Five and John McCain, there will be Republican shoplifters implicated along with the Democratic bank robbers if the ledger books ever have to be produced. The Help and the Hos never had it better and will be sad to see it end. It is small… Read more »
The GOP makes the greatest jobbers in pro wrestling look like amateur hacks.
The GOP is more akin to enhancement talent than jobbers. They’re at the level of S.D. Jones, Iron Mike Sharpe, or Tim Horner. The kinds of guys who would provide a creditably competitive match on TV but who inevitably do the job.
Say what you will about Joe Biden, but he loves his kids… I have to disagree with that one when it comes to Hunter. Joe’s favorite child, the one Joe had chosen as his successor, was Beau. Hunter was the embarrassment, the unloved one who turned into the piece of human garbage he is because of his monstrous father favoring the son who died, who he constantly talks about, instead of him. Make no mistake, if it benefited Joe, Hunter would be in jail, because the son he loved died years ago. Hunter is expendable. Pardoning him is less about… Read more »
The pettiness of that old man is amusing. His dementia seems to stave off when scheming to screw over people. Not the best thing for a man about to meet his maker, but at least he can make us laugh.
He can meet The Devil 😈 with a smile 😅.
And probably will.
That line about loving his kids was an oblique reference to his daughter’s diary.
Twitter-heads saying that Hunter was dropping heavy hints about writing a “tell all” book which is what spurred the pardon.
We’ll never know.
Joe loves Hunter, but understood his limitations and destructive tendencies and knew Hunter could never successfully run for public office. Beau was the one who had his act together and could have taken over for Joe. Once he “died in Iraq” all that Joe could do was use Hunter as a cut out to get bribe money, still useful to Joe, but not the same.
With what he knows….could Hunter become the next Epstein…?
one can only hope…
Did not think about that, but I would not be shocked if he gets some bad crack.
HEAVILY laced with Fentanyl. Sourced from the finest dealers who just snuck over the Rio Grande.
“If the 2014 start date seems important, that is because it is when the Biden family started feeding at the Ukraine trough.”
Ukraine is the rosetta stone of what this government is about; cia coups; political slushfunds and kickbacks, and sending millions into a meatgrinder war against Russia for the crime of being Christian, not anal, and opposing global financier domination.
and how could i forget secret labs making safe and effective plagues.
…and surrogate wombs for the rich.
The WSJ had a sob story in 2022 about an apartment complex housing surrogate Ukrainian mothers (“baby dealership”) which was hit by the evil Russians.
What astounds me is that among all the hue and cry, nobody suggest that the presidential pardon makes a mockery of the American judicial system, that it’s just naked, unabashed clientelism.
Sort of the same attitude to presidents routinely employing family member in key cabinet positions, and that being related to a president is a legitimate political reason why you have a good shot at becoming the future POTUS.
Get civilized, y’all.
Getting civilized doesn’t pay enough yet.
I think every political system has a built-in top executive pardon mechanism. It’s the old royal prerogative of mercy which, I think, has been around since the days of the pyramids
Should we get as civilized as England?
The British king can’t pardon his friends, neither can European prime ministers.
The whole point about the rule of law is that it everybody follows it, even kings and presidents. It’s understood that rich and powerful men don’t go to jail and so forth, but you’re supposed to go through the motions.
The pardon is not nearly as problematic as the fact that Hunter was basically being bribed by Ukraine. His father then gave billions to Ukraine not only for military aid, but to bankroll the entire Ukrainian government, yet the entire Washington establishment was totally blasé about it The fact that Biden was completely given a pass on this by the Left and the media and is simply incredible. I remember what things were like in the 1970s… imagine what the reaction would have been if Tricia Nixon had been a drug addict and she was paid millions to be put… Read more »
The main purpose of the pardon was the Ukraine aspect. Hence, it was backdated until the time Hunter Biden’s management skills became invaluable.
Doesn’t this pardon also serve as a de facto pardon for the big guy as well?
The bottom line, from the standpoint of our side, is that Hunter’s pardon is another thumb in the eye of the Democratic party from Biden…It’s a beautiful thing….
President Biden’s pardon of son Hunter isn’t so much a revelation of leftist hypocrisy as it is an indication of paranoia about possible cracks in the system. After years of ruthless lawfare against Trump and his acolytes, might some Republican placeholders be angry enough to actually go after a bit of the lawlessness and self-dealing among the nomenklatura? Contrast this with Murkowskie and her Republican Senate colleagues’ refusal to confirm Trump nominees not on good terms with the FBI. This reads like the usual boob-bate for constituents, but also demonstrates a reliance on the system to keep themselves out of… Read more »
You’ve put into words what a lot of people are thinking. Thank You! Well said. My first thought when I heard the news: There are legal routes that can be taken to bring NEW charges against Hunter. Just changing the words can make a difference!
Probably not at the Federal level..State charges could be brought for crimes if they were within the statute of limitations, but the laptop doesn’t disclose evidence of those except possibly incest, but Delaware isn’t going to prosecute a Biden…
Without wading into whether prospective crimes without charges or convictions can be legitimately pardoned (they seemingly can be), look for ol’ Joe and his brother James also to receive Get out of Jail Free cards if his D.C. shysters can devise a theory to allow it. There may be others who were involved in the Ukraine grift who also receive these if they pony up enough for the Joe Biden Presidential Library. Those will happen on the last day Biden spends in his White House Old Folks Home. Bargain Basement Ukraine grifters like the Brothers Vinman probably will be left… Read more »
Dems go low, republicans go high, sir.
Trump was famously impeached a second time on Jan 13, less than a week before he left office.
If the GOP had any stones, they’d be clamoring for the same. Heck, it would give DEMOCRATS cover for their support of “the Big Guy”.
It’s a toothless gesture anyway; just an asterisk in a history book no one will ever read.
Seems like easy money.
Sam dixon and Marc Weber talk about loyalty and America. Most Americans think of “family” as their parents or their children and maybe their first cousins. Lower class whites live more around the extended family so that could include second cousins but everyone else is the same: a Somalian is equal to a your next door neighbor. so old joe being loyal is not so impressive to me. Where is the loyalty to one’s people. Neither conservative nor liberal have this. there is no we in America so it’s impossible to be loyal to anyone but your immediate family. I… Read more »
“Say what you will about Joe Biden, but he loves his kids, perhaps too much. At some level, you must respect his family loyalty. There is an old world gangsterism about his willingness to help his family loot the political system.”
For lack of a better way of describing it, Catholic culture, maybe? Roman culture? European culture? I’d never rat on a family member and I’d probably do the same thing in his place. That extends to my kid, brothers, cousins, nephews, nieces, wife, in-laws, etc.
Maybe Biden did it now in case of a 25th A move to prevent nuclear war?
Washington loves to play its political games. Within the Beltway, there is a sense that everything is unreal and we’re living in a dream and only power makes things concrete. Power is the great leveler. Power clarifies, is the one constant. The lawyers who fill the political ranks are trained in deception, including self-deception. On the one hand they are cynical about the whole process, on the other they genuinely believe they are helping things out. Like rats following the Pied Piper, they follow after whoever seems strongest in the moment. To be a Washington insider means speaking in a… Read more »