Just when depressed Democrats, still licking their post-election wounds, thought things couldn’t get any worse, Joe broke wind at the DC dinner party. If anything, the Biden Crime Family Pardon was an absurd
faux pas, which continued heaving up hilarity and political entertainment all day yesterday, in heaping handfuls, as corporate media flailed wildly in desperate search of a mutually agreed narrative. It’s almost like their handlers won’t tell them what to do. Behold, Google’s Fractured Fairy Tales, I mean Top Stories, this morning:
For most of yesterday morning, the media tried coalescing around a typical “Republicans Pounce” narrative, sketching Biden as, perhaps, a good father, even if a bad president. In this failed morality play, Republicans were the unfeeling interlopers butting into a private family drama, like a nosy neighbor who saw cop cars at the house last night, and came over to deliver the unsolicited advice that “if you want to know what I think, you should just let him go to jail, to learn his lesson.”
But that narrative quickly collapsed, since Republicans weren’t so much
pouncing as they were rolling around on the floor laughing and pointing at duped Democrat talking heads who, having bought Joe’s regularly regurgitated lie about never
ever pardoning Hunter, swanked around for a year bragging about their party’s undying love and irrevocable respect for the majesty of the law, compared to knuckle-dragging Republicans. But now, these ‘elites’ look like idiots, and it smarts.
When the “Republicans Pounce” narrative collapsed yesterday, the narrative devolved into a chaotic free-for-all. Even beyond how bad the pardon looked yesterday, this scandal is further damaging the already well-dinged Democrat ‘brand.’ Democrats who crossed the aisle and voted for Trump are probably thanking their lucky stars. To witness the astonishing same-day rhetorical evolution, consider just two headlines, both from far-left Axios. Here’s Sunday’s headline, right after the pardon news broke. Call it Take One:
Groans and shrugs!
Ugh, how long do we have to listen to these whiny Republicans complain about this nothing-burger? But one day later, see today’s Take Two headline, right in the same far-left newspaper:
Haha! From
groans and shrugs to
a deepening Dem identity crisis in one news day! This might even be a record for media retconning.
Here’s the bigger point: the
reason for the Democrats’ deepening identity crisis is that, at least on the Hunter pardon issue, corporate media is obviously adrift, for the first time in years having no one to tell them what the approved narrative is. The Democrat party is both leaderless, thanks to an irascible, grudge-holding, hell-hath-no-fury like a scorned commander in chief who’s turned against the party, and also rudderless, having been abandoned by its deep state handlers. (At least, on this issue.)
Believe me, it’s tempting to speculate on where media coordination and Democrat party discipline has run off to. Let’s watch and see if they can stitch a coherent narrative back together today.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s comments included tons of questions about legal points relating to Hunter’s pardon. Evidently, I did a poor job anticipating the issues, so I’ll do my best today to answer these fine legal points.
How broad was Hunter’s pardon? Does it include (x, y, z)?
Hunter’s pardon was unusually and historically broad. The next closest example was Gerald Ford’s controversial 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon. This is a deeply embarrassing comparison for politically savvy Democrats, to whom Nixon was arguably even more Hitler than
Donald Trump.
Hunter’s pardon was so broad it included
unknown crimes and a breathtaking decade-long time span. Usually, presidents prefer not to pardon unknown crimes, because it could be badly embarrassing later if it turned out the person murdered somebody or blew up an airplane or something.
In other words, it wasn’t even close to being “just” a pardon. People are intentionally lying who claim Biden “understandably” pardoned his son out of protective fatherly instinct. Had Biden just been acting as a reluctant but loving father, the pardon would have been as narrow as possible or at least, limited to known crimes. Saying this pardon was just because Biden didn’t “want to see his son go to jail” is kind of like saying he only asked the Ukrainians for a little walking around money during his visit.
As for its scope, the pardon can’t reach two types of crimes: first, no future crime can be pardoned. Second, since the president's pardon power applies only to federal offenses, Hunter can still be charged under state law, if there was any state Attorney General brave enough to do it.
Did Hunter Biden’s pardon also ‘essentially’ pardon Joe Biden?
No, I don’t agree with this hot take. Biden did not “essentially pardon himself.” He might have pardoned his
agent or his
co-conspirator, but it seems unlikely to me that Joe can raise for himself any effective pardon-related defense. The only truth in this hot take is the pardon might make it harder to prosecute Joe — if, that is, you believed Hunter would have ever testified truthfully against his dad.
Can Hunter be compelled to testify since, having been pardoned, he cannot raise the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination?
Unfortunately, Hunter probably cannot be compelled to testify. He could still incriminate himself in crimes under state law (that were not pardoned).
Why did Hunter’s DOJ prosecutors refuse to voluntarily dismiss his case?
Yesterday, Newsweek ran a story headlined, “
Prosecutors urge court not to dismiss Hunter Biden case after pardon.” This new created confusion and a lot more hot takes. But there’s nothing there. It’s only a fine procedural argument.
Hunter’s lawyers immediately and correctly sought dismissal of the criminal cases after the pardon came through. The DOJ special counsel handling the cases immediately responded, saying ‘dismissal’ wasn’t the correct procedure, since the crimes and convictions were only pardoned, not vacated or expunged. The special counsel argued instead that the cases should be
administratively terminated.
In other words, everyone agrees the cases should end. The only argument is over
how to end them. Hunter’s lawyers are earning their fees by trying to clean up his record as best they can on the way out.
If you are looking for a deeper dive, including the Hunter Pardon Kiev Connection, try Ron Paul’s reaction discussion:
CLIP: The inimitable Ron Paul rants about the Hunter Biden pardon (21:35).
Hunter Biden Pardon Part II, after the story grew lots more legs yesterday and infested the Dems; questions answered; and The Washington Post gently dropped some hypersonic truth bombs on Zelensky.
www.coffeeandcovid.com