Main Edition
US
FR
December 2, 2024 - 10:20pm
Joe Biden’s blanket pardon of his son Hunter is so sweeping that it boomerangs all the way back to the Resolute Desk, where the President himself will enjoy protection from his own pardon. Now the elder Biden’s knowledge of and involvement in his family’s sordid foreign lobbying business can fade away quietly. (Although it arguably already was.)
Aaron Blake, hardly a conservative, characterised the Hunter Biden pardon as one of “extraordinary breadth” and “remarkable” scope on Monday. Nothing, not even pardons of Michael Flynn or Iran-Contra or Roger Clinton or Vietnam draft dodgers were quite as sweeping. Even on Watergate, Blake rightfully observes Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon covered a period only half as long as Hunter Biden’s pardon, and Nixon may have been covered by presidential immunity. The precedent, for those who remained concerned with such matters, is staggering. But this is where many analysts are stopping short.
The pardon also means that Biden’s blanket pardon will shield his son from any future charges stemming from felony violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act. As far as we know, much of that work is now beyond the statute of limitations — perhaps intentionally — but that’s also not certain. Hunter Biden quite clearly lobbied on behalf of foreign governments without registering with the Justice Department. Before the Trump era, such errors frequently resulted in slaps on the wrist. But since Paul Manafort and Tony Podesta were implicated in a Ukrainian lobbying scheme, K Street has been on high alert.
The tax and gun charges Hunter Biden was set to be sentenced on this month do not directly implicate his father in significant wrongdoing. FARA charges, on the other hand, involve access peddling which, in Hunter Biden’s case, necessarily involve selling that access to his father.
There is some evidence that Joe Biden knew about Hunter Biden’s foreign lobbying and misled the public about that knowledge. A FARA trial could expose much more about the extent of the president’s deceptions and involvement in the business, along with evidence that Hunter’s foreign lobbying income was intentionally routed to his father for personal financial benefit. As Turley explains about the elder Biden, “He was repeatedly asked if he knew about Hunter’s foreign dealings, including millions in alleged deals with Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese and other clients. President Biden lied and denied such knowledge.”
Joe Biden will be an ailing 82-year-old man in a few weeks’ time. The public has known about his son’s influence-peddling antics for years now, and the President himself clearly misled voters about his own understanding of the business. While the pardon itself isn’t surprising or a game-changer when it comes to Joe Biden’s legacy, it should be understood not merely as an act of fatherly love but also one of personal protection.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeAnd with a stroke of his pen, Biden has sent the moral high-horse of the Democrats straight to the knackers yard.
Shameless. And yet delicious; the perfect end to the worst presidency since Obama.
The knackers yard seems to be where American politics lives these days – no reason why Joe Biden shouldn’t do exactly what Trump would have done in the same situation!
Nor now of course the reverse.
Trump has already demonstrated that he will do whatever he feels like and you people are just fine with that – but now you have the vapors because Biden did something a wee bit Trumpy?
Spare us the phony outrage…
“Vapours” you ignorant muppet.
‘You people’. Oh dear!
Trump did do it to his daughter’s father in law amongst others. Both sides are as bad as each other
They all suck – period. But at least his son in law’s father actually served his sentence.
Biden can partially redeem his presidency by using these last week’s in office to forcefully condemn the corruption that is Washington DC.
He should include his role and call out Obama’s FBI, DOJ and IRS.
He should acknowledge the Steele dossier contribution to public cynism.
Hillary’s email server and subsequent destruction of evidence must be included.
Finally, attest to what everyone knows, the claim that Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation was a blatant campaign hoax that may have won Biden’s miserable one term.
Yes but you Lefties are supposed to be virtuous… Like a priest with his hand in the till, the sin is far worse*
(*Before you bang on, I am no Trump fan just disgusted by hypocrisy…)
Quit crying, Trumpboy.
We all know that Trump is going to pardon himself on day one and you’ll be out here saying that of course he should. You people are utter hypocrites.
They’re all like that. Trump, Biden, Pelosi – all of them. Really nothing to see here. What makes Biden a special POS is his constant moralizing. Even in the press release announcing the pardon, he had the temerity to say he doesn’t lie.
The difference is that the Democrats have espoused moral superiority and have been found out for the hypocrites that they are. It’s the same with Starmer making a massive issue about Boris’ wallpaper, then accepting pay offs as though he had a God given right to receive them!
My rule about politicians is that the more sanctimonious they proclaim to be, the less I trust them.
You seem to have forgotten the perfect ending to the disastrous first Trump presidency, old chap! Riots in the streets, an attempted coup, runaway inflation and unemployment, and the first president to be impeached twice!
And the sequel is always worse than the original. Smart play, America!
Still pushing that lump of ordure uphill and spreading the lies, are you? Pitiful!
Quit crying, Bidenfanboy
It’s ‘toy season’. Get a pram to go with them so you can throw them out at your leisure whilst taking the moral high ground.
The Biden Administration is the worst Presidency ever.
Worse than Wilson?
Tough call.
Buchanan?
Top class trolling by Joe Biden!
In the vernacular of my nation and generation, no duh. A headline wholeheartedly arguing the sun will rise tomorrow would have produced about as much surprise as the revelation that Biden’s unprecedented pardon was an attempt to protect his own sorry hide.
Unlike most commentators, I’m not so naive as to believe that there was any point in American history where such nepotism and influence peddling was not occurring. There is no mythical time when American government or any other was pure and innocent of all corruption. There was, however, a time when both parties and virtually all politicians refrained from using the criminal justice system to make such backroom dealings public and parade them before the masses in order to score political points. For most of US history, this was avoided, because it made little sense to use a tactic on your opponent that could easily turned on you once someone else gained power. When such scandals were prosecuted at all, it was usually because someone screwed up and the media got wind of it. The scandals of the past were prosecuted halfheartedly because both sides were rightly concerned with politicizing the justice system. There is a delicate balance between maintaining respect for anti-corruption laws and being perceived as persecuting political enemies.
Traditionally, the fear of being perceived as politicizing the justice system tempered any prosecutions of controversies involving major political figures. Alas, the threat of Trumpian populism to the neoliberal globalist project prompted the ruling class to break precedent and try to use the justice system in multiple ways, first by investigating and trying to find some plausible connection between the Trump campaign and so-called Russian election interference, which basically amounted to posting lies on social media, something anybody with a computer is capable of doing. Then, and more importantly, by trying to find something, anything, whether deliberate or inadvertent they could use to imply Trump’s unfitness for further office. This had the predictable effect of creating the appearance of political motivations for criminal prosecutions, the very thing that earlier, more competent, politicians had always feared. This had the effect of galvanizing his supporters who already felt the system was against them, feeding into his anti-elite narrative, and even gave possible credence to his ridiculous assertion that the election had been ‘stolen’. They threw out centuries of precedent and went above and beyond what any political faction or party has attempted in two and a half centuries of American history to stop one man and failed to do so. Of course Biden is worried about protecting his family and himself revenge prosecutions. Given what’s happened over the past eight years, what sane person wouldn’t be worried about revenge prosecutions? They just got through doing it to Trump. Of course they’re afraid he will retaliate in kind. From 2016 up to the present, the elite response to the Trump movement can be summarized in two words, epic fail.
Now, of course, Biden’s unprecedented pardon will give Trump plenty of cover to issue an equally broad pardon of himself and/or his family for whatever prosecutions are ongoing when he leaves office. I fully expect all future presidents to pardon themselves and whoever else might be necessary to cover whatever scandals the other side’s media has managed to unearth over their four or eight year terms. This new precedent will replace the old, and become accepted for about the same reason the old one was. There’s really not much point in pursuing minor white collar crimes perpetrated by politicians because whatever actual merit they may have, there’s no escaping the perceptual trap of prosecuting one’s political opponents. Even if the crimes are real and proven, it’s still political. If a political figure does something obviously wrong and inarguably criminal and it’s discovered, prosecution won’t be necessary. That’s because in the American system with its complex layers of local, state, and federal officials and multiple legislative bodies, voters are represented by many different politicians at any one time, politicians who all have influence in both the government and the political parties themselves. In such cases where conduct is so egregious that most voters can agree on it, the political pressure from voters and their many other representatives will always be harsher and more immediate than any legal remedy, as was the case with Nixon, who was forced to resign long before any criminal prosecution could come to fruition.
Brevity. It’s the soul of wit. Try it.
This is the third time you have made such a criticism, and i acknowledge you have a point, but give it a rest. I can recognize my shortcomings. How about you? If brevity is the soul of wit, then repetition is the death of imagination.
I’ll give it a rest when you manage to make a point in less that 600 words. Until then expect me to remind you every single time….
At least he manages to make a point
Just don’t read it mate… that’s the solution to your problem.
You could try responding to the argument for a change.
But, as you so clearly demonstrate, insufficient.
Not always, as you show here.
Pity your own brevity is witless.
You speak your mind, don’t you. So why don’t you stay silent?
Not a word out of place.
The vagaries of American politics continues to fascinate those of us who aren’t particularly well versed in it.
When we see all these new appointments to dozens of agencies & departments it seems inefficient at least to always be changing the person at the top.
The pardon system seems an archaic system that probably needs constraining or reform.
It seems equally strange that Congress has to approve the various appointments a new President makes, but they can pardon at will.
Perhaps it’s time for a bit of oversight of the pardon system.
But then I’m commenting from the UK where a pardon is so rare as to be unheard of.
I though your monarch could parden people?
Not in reality. The main function of the Monarch is to be a sounding board for the Prime Minister. The late Queen had more experience of World Affairs than any leader, including serving in the Army in WW2. What she did was request the PM explain their policies and ask to consider aspects she considered the most important; Socratic questioning.
You have some good points – but Trump is the man who won his first campaign on ‘Lock Hilary up’ and more or less spurious attacks on her for using the wrong email server (!) – and who was greatly aided by Russian intelligence leaks of Democrat emails and openly invited the FSB to keep up the good work. It is frankly ridiculous to pretend that he did nothing wrong, and it is only the dastardly Democrats who invented lawfare. Just like it is ridiculous to blame Biden for ‘setting a bad precedent’ when Trump is openly boasting of using the justice system to stick it to his political (and personal) enemies. The great thing about norms of propriety – even if they are widely flouted – is that people feel a need to at least appear clean, and this limits what they dare try to get away with. Once you establish that you can proudly break every norm and still get (re)elected – as Trump has done – there is no restraint on anyone.
As for trusting to the electorate to keep the politicians in line, that means that anyone who can get a majority (including by gerrymandering, electoral fraud, or locking up his enemies) is above the law and free to break it with impunity. Is that really the kind of society you want to live in?
I’ll answer your final question first. To be direct, yes, I do prefer a system that trusts the electorate to keep politicians in line, provided there is a robust system of checks and balances and a division of powers in place to make such things as direct majority rule over the entire country extremely difficult. My reasoning is simple. What is the alternative? To paraphrase Churchill, democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything else that’s been tried. If we do not trust the people themselves to choose their leaders who do we trust, for surely somebody must make such judgements. Do we place all our faith in a single autocrat to make such judgements, and if so, do we allow such a person to choose himself through his own strategies and machinations or do we choose through the principal of hereditary inheritance as we have for so much of human history. Neoliberal globalism has in fact, whether inadvertently or by deliberate design, offered us another alternative, the system that some Unherd writers, particularly Mary, refers to as ‘swarmism’, that is rule by experts chosen by virtue of their education and credential either individually or in committee with other experts who are empowered to make decisions over their sphere of expertise with little practical accountability to elected representatives or anybody else. A full critique of this philosophy is beyond the scope of this reply, but the chief problem is that swarmism is simply another form of totalitarianism in disguise, a totalitarianism enforced not by individuals but by the system itself. In its purest and most fully realized form, it is reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984, a system with no leaders that runs itself regardless of who is in charge, a system that requires no leader, yet obliterates freedom, necessitates conformity, and reduces men and women at all levels of power and influence to the interchangeable parts of a machine that whirs, churns, hums, and grinds along but produces nothing of any real value. I categorically reject this form of government, which you seem to favor by virtue of your implication that the electorate cannot be trusted to choose their leadership and you seem to simultaneously reject the notion of autocracy and totalitarianism by virtue of your objection to individuals being ‘above the law’ which true autocrats must always be.
I sympathize to some extent with your sentiments. I myself am deeply disappointed that the people have chosen someone of such questionable character as Donald Trump to be their mechanism of protest against an entrenched and intransigent ruling class that refused to respect or even address the popular will over a long period of time. I would have infinitely preferred someone like Bernie Sanders, or Josh Hawley, or Rand Paul, or any number of others to Donald Trump, but I am not so self-absorbed as to place my opinion above that of my countrymen. They have chosen Trump, and though I disagree and fear the possible implications of their choice, as Trump is unpredictable, chaotic, and divisive, prone to impulsive and ill considered words and actions, in the end, I respect their choice. I respected it four and eight years ago as well, though then, as now, I was deeply disappointed with both the available options.
At the end of the day, to debate human political systems is to debate imperfections and defects, to argue which problems are preferable to other problems and which imperfections one can live with. I concede the possibility of a tyranny of the majority in the American system. I concede that there are risks. Given the historical trauma of the world wars, I cannot fault European observers for fearing Trump will become America’s Hitler. Still, all forms of government have their flaws. All can descend into tyranny and oppression given the right conditions. There is really no such thing as an ideal government. We can only choose the least bad of the options. I can live with a representative government that embraces the popular sovereignty of the people over themselves even when it produces what I consider less than optimal results. Over the longer term, and through history, there is no better alternative that I can find.
That is a deep and convincing reply and I can only agree with much of it. However, I would challenge your point “provided there is a robust system of checks and balances and a division of powers in place to make such things as direct majority rule over the entire country extremely difficult“. If the only check on the executive is the need to be re-elected, where are those checks and balances to come from? The first port of call for would-be autocrats, from Modi to Orban to Netanyahu is always to take control of the media and the courts. Also democracy has always been tempered by the rule of experts, and to some degree I would say that is a good thing: it was the people, not the elite, who were in favour of the death penalty, witch burnings, and faith healing. More specifically I would say that a community of knowledgable people socialised to know and respect the central purpose of their craft is a good counterweight to arbitrary decision-making by those in power. Engineers dedicated to building planes that do not fall down (such as Boeing seems to be short of, at the moment), doctors dedicated to using methods that work to keep people healthy, scientists socialised to respect the power of evidence, election officials dedicated to making elections work, police dedicated to catching law-breakers, judges dedicated to uphold and respect the law, and civil servants dedicated to enforcing the procedures that prevents arbitrary and corrupt practices, all of these provide at least some bulwark against abuses and bad results. Imagine a system that had none of these things, where all these people were happy to do whatever they were paid or ordered to do – how would that look?
Specifically on the criminal acts of politicians it would be very good indeed to have a justice system that could and would enforce obedience to existing laws – also against elected politicians. Admittedly such a system would have to stay strictly out of politics and refrain from trying to *make* the laws, which is hard at the best of times when the system is under stress. And the US system with its elected prosecutors and hopelessly politicised judiciary is far from ideal, to put it mildly. It does not help that (because the legislative and executive are set up to keep each other in check?) the courts have tended to take it upon themselves to resolve all the most thorny questions with little reference to pre-existing law, from slavery (the Dred Scott decision), to abortion (Roe v. Wade, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization), gay marriage, gun control, presidential immunity, …). You cannot stay above politics when you take all the important decisions.
If we leave it all to the electorate, then any President who could get a majority in the Senate would have full impunity for anything up to and including attempted coups or arresting the opposition. Or, to take another example, one notorious South-African minister was adamant that AIDS was a plot by evil westerners, and that any similar symptoms could be dealt with perfectly well by traditional African medicine, like beetroot juice. Her party was in power, and so was she. Is it not kind of nice to have a medical establishment to obstruct that kind of thing?
I’m much in agreement with both you and Mr Jolly, but disagree with some of your statements.
more or less spurious attacks on her for using the wrong email server (!)
It was against the law and a clear, successful effort to destroy evidence of probable additional crimes. Added to other lies, the public had many reasons to reject her.
Once you establish that you can proudly break every norm and still get (re)elected – as Trump has done – there is no restraint on anyone.
Is Trump your sole example? Bill Clinton, draft dodger and perjurer. Harry Reid, lied about Romney, among other lies. More, but now newly Sen Schiff renowned for his Russia lies is the current champ.
More specifically I would say that a community of knowledgable people socialised to know and respect the central purpose of their craft is a good counterweight to arbitrary decision-making by those in power.
You’re referring to Fauci and Collins?
any President who could get a majority in the Senate would have full impunity for anything up to and including attempted coups or arresting the opposition
You appear to believe that senators and the courts have no independent principles and will defer as all deferred to Stalin.
It is worth going through some of your examples.
I would put Hilarys email server together with Trumps Stormzy Daniels case and the case for lying on his loan applications, and Hunter Biden’s false statement on his gun application. These are things that are against the law, but not particularly serious. They would have been ignored or dealt with by a fine if they had not been blown up for political purposes. As for Hilarys ‘probable additional crimes’ it is fairly common for politicians to try to hide their dealings. Trump, as I understand it, switched over to using a burner phone on January 6th.
Clinton is a special case. There are many draft dodgers in politics (Trump and Bush among them). And what he was really guilty of was having consensual sex with a willing woman in the oval office, which is not against any law I have heard of. The Republicans managed to fabricate a situation where they could question him about his sex life under oath in order to take him down politically, and he managed to find a way to wriggle out of it. Game all, I would say.
Fauci and Collins, yes, are good examples of people who know the facts and try in good faith to keep people healthy. There is a question mark over Fauci for his role in gain-of-function research and his attemps to hide it, but on lockdowns they are clean. Something needed doing, and people needed to join up, and the long inconclusive debate that the Barringtoners wanted would have had as its only result that nobody would have complied with policy until the debate was finished – twenty years later. When the house is burning you send in the firefighters. You do not stop and have a series of seminars whether some maverick alternative strategy might have worked better.
Harry Reid sounds fully as infamous as anything you could say about Trump. But as for Sen. Schiff, I am sorry, but the accusations about collusion with Russia were both very serious and quite reasonable, unlike most of your counterexamples. It is only Republican partisanship that pretends otherwise. It is estalished fact that Trump was materially helped by leaks from the FSB who had hacked Democrat emails, that Trump openly welcomed the help and asked for more, and that he had aides chat to Russian contacts about further potential help. In the end it seems to have been decided that this degree of canoodling with foreign inelligence services falls within the bounds of acceptable behaviour for American politicians (strange as I may find it), but case was worth pursuing.
Most senators will vote for anything that is good for their party. There were a few whose independent principles were strong enough to make them stand against Trump, but these have now been purged. Those who remain either think that any crime is OK if it helps their side, or will not risk ruining their career going against the bosses.
Trump can certainly try to take control of the courts and the media. He arguably already has. Of course ambitious politicians will attempt such things. That should be understood, and in fact it was understood by the founding fathers. They expected bad behavior from future politicians, and to some extent even from each other. I could go into some detail on the animosities between the Hamiltonian Federalists and the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans. The question isn’t whether some one will try to do that. The question is can they succeed?
As I’ve said, the possibility certainly exists in any system, but it would be inordinately difficult for someone to command similar power to Hitler or Stalin or even Modi or Bibi, in the American system. America is divided into fifty states, each with their own government that is mostly independent of the federal government. There are differences from state to state. A few states have unicameral (one house) legislatures, but most have bicameral legislatures that imitate the federal system. They each have their own executive, the state governor. In this respect, America as a whole bears more similarities to the EU as a whole than to the nations that compose the EU. If in the future the EU did allow direct election of federal officials, including the executive, they might elect someone like Trump, but it’s highly unlikely that the people of Hungary and the people of France would both equally embrace such a figure. So it is with America. Even with Trump’s decisive victory, he only got slightly over 50% of the total popular votes. He won a commanding majority in the electoral college, but many states, including some of the wealthiest and most powerful states, voted against him. There are methods by which state governments can inhibit federal power. The most obvious is the courts, but there are others. For example, the governor of Texas used the national guard to defend the Texas-Mexico border a few months back. The question of who actually controls the national guard is something of a gray area in American politics. Traditionally, during peacetime they are under the authority of the state governor. The federal government can nationalize the guard at any time, but that’s almost never done in peacetime and risks setting off a direct confrontation, which could end badly in a number of ways. A violent confrontation would still be very unlikely, but a mass resignation of guardsmen would be a real possibility and the political consequences of dealing with such a spectacle are an absolute nightmare and there would be long term military implications as well given that the national guard comprises a significant percentage of America’s total armed forces. The Texas governor was well aware of this when he made the decision. He knew his actions were almost certainly illegal in the strictest sense of the law, but they were supported by the people and presumably the guardsmen themselves. He was a Republican governor of a border state who had a significant policy dispute with the federal government, and he used the tools he had available to defy the federal government. With it being an election year and with international conflict a real possibility, Biden sensibly backed down. Trump may well face similar opposition from states like California and New York when he starts attempting the mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
Further, much of the power in the American system is invested informally through the two party system. Though the Constitution was not written with party politics in mind and Washington himself argued against the formation of political parties and factions, over time, this came to be the accepted state of American politics and the various states passed laws and procedures that basically enshrine the two party system. Primaries are contested elections in and of themselves. In some places the primaries are more important and decisive than the general election. These primaries are regulated and conducted by state law. They are, in effect, elections within elections, where voters can strategically choose the candidate most likely to win or instead go with the candidate who most closely reflects their views on the issues.
Given the diversity of America in terms of race, creed, religion, and culture, neither party is monolithic. Both are marked by a delicate balance of political factions that often have their own political goals and are passionate about particular issues, but they come together and compromise in order to win elections. If they take a position too extreme, they risk opening themselves up to criticisms from the other party. In his first term, Trump was forced to compromise on many issues with the old guard Republicans. Though they were already in decline thanks to the tea party movement, they still wielded considerable power and influence in the party. In the eight years since 2016, the power of the old guard neoconservative wing of the party has declined even further, and far more populist politicians and voices have risen within the Republican party, while many opportunistic finger in the wind politicians (a species common to our side of the pond that I suspect most Europeans are unfamiliar with, though I must say Starmer seems to bear some resemblance to that archetype) have tacked strategically in a populist direction. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz spring to mind. Trump has had an easier time choosing other populists to fill his cabinet this time, and has been bold enough to appoint independents and members of the other party to his cabinet, a rarity in American politics.
The parties themselves act as agents of enforcement. If the President commits an act so heinous that most people agree, the parties will act to remove a candidate or official. Nixon was forced to resign by his own party before the Senate could impeach him and before any court could bring the case to trial. Joe Biden was removed as a candidate in July as a result of his clear cognitive decline. In every government and society, there are both formal and informal kinds of power. In these cases, the informal power invested in the parties and the two party system acted as a stabilizing force. For better or worse, nothing Trump has done rose to a level that commanded universal condemnation from the people. In my view, this was largely result of how the other side badly mishandled the situation and overplayed their hand. From 2016 to Jan 6th to the Trump prosecutions, the other side made mistake after mistake after mistake. They failed to find conclusive collaboration between Russia and the Trump campaign, which made them look political. Most of the Trump prosecutions happened during the election year or towards the end of the previous year, again, it looked political. Some of the rhetoric coming out of the defeated Clinton campaign, such as their attempts to convince electors to vote their conscience rather than follow the result of their election (technically not illegal but unprecedented and very bad optics) paved the way for Trump to make his claims about Jan 6th and provided an opening for his supporters and indeed for all Americans to wonder if the other side is any better. Had they stuck to the moral high ground and treated Trump seriously as a political figure instead of dismissing him and breaking precedent after precedent trying to stop him, things might be different, but what’s done is done. For better or worse, a slim majority of the people didn’t believe what Trump has done disqualified him from office.
Your point about the courts is well taken and I completely agree. In my view, the Dred Scott decision was legally sound according to the laws of the time even as it highlighted the moral concerns of abolitionists and reinforced the impossibility of the USA remaining as it was, half slave and half free. The others though, were pure judicial activism. I’d also add Plessey vs. Ferguson that established the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine that enabled Jim Crow laws and probably the ‘Brown vs. Board of Education decision that reversed that decision. Whether one agrees with the results and the moral principles or not, these are issues that could have and should have been addressed by Congress in its lawmaking capacity or through the process of amending the constitution. The problem arguably goes all the way back to the aforementioned animosity between Federalists and Jeffersonians. At the end of the administration of John Adams, there was a dispute between the outgoing Adams administration and the incoming Jefferson administration. It was a somewhat inconsequential matter of the right of presidents to appoint officials to federal posts that probably could have been resolved without any grand declaration, but Chief Justice John Marshall established that the Supreme Court could declare a law unconstitutional despite the fact that the Constitution itself grants no such authority. This is almost never discussed or questioned outside of history classes because, the first few decades of American history, from 1776 to about the Monroe administration, have a quasi-mythic status in the minds of many Americans. Few Americans, even the brightest and best minds, dare to question much of anything that was established during that period other than those questions like slavery that were already resolved by earlier generations.
It is probably easy for Europeans to see the problem. The Supreme Court is basically all powerful. They can, in theory, overturn almost any law passed or any executive order by declaring said law or order ‘unconstitutional’. It’s been this way since 1803, and the country has managed alright despite this because the courts have tended to be nonpartisan and impartial, or at least regarded by the people as such. Great care was taken to avoid taking political sides on most questions, with a few exceptions, the most consequential of which one or both of us has mentioned. These days, with the political environment so ideologically divided, it is impossible to maintain any semblance of a non-partisan court, and with the media environment and the Internet, there is no chance for the government or the court itself to maintain a plausible illusion of impartiality. The timing of the death/retirement of judges becomes a critical factor in controlling the court. Trump’s appointments basically got Roe vs. Wade overturned. Roe vs. Wade was a terrible decision and a political one in 1970. The decision overturning it was also political, even if it was, in my view, necessary for the legislative process on abortion to resume and for the will of the people to be known. You mention, correctly, that it is very difficult to impeach a President. It is even harder to impeach a Supreme Court Justice. It has been attempted exactly once, unsuccessfully, in 1804. Further, they are the least accountable of any of the branches of government. They are appointed rather than elected so not directly accountable to the people, only indirectly through the choice of the President, and again, something as arbitrary as unexpected deaths can tip the court for years or decades towards one side. Further, they are basically forbidden from any formal association with either political party, so the informal pressure that can be brought to bear against them is minimal. Clarence Thomas can lean as far Republican and conservative as he wants and there’s not much that can be done by anybody to stop it. Expanding the court just introduces other problems and further politicizes the issue. This is one of the thorniest problems in American politics and also one of the least discussed. Ultimately, I think the solution has to be to recognize the obvious, that judges are as political as anybody else, and build some mechanism for maintaining a balance into the court systems, possibly including recognizing the two party system in federal and constitutional law officially. Unfortunately, any reform, even something as limiting the terms of office for judges, would require a constitutional amendment, and the political climate in America at this time is, to state the obvious, less than ideal for such an achievement, given the difficulty of amending the constitution and the broad consensus across states necessary.
As to the role of experts, that’s why free speech has to be enshrined and vigorously defended impartially and in all cases. For freedom of speech to mean anything, it cannot recognize that there exists an objective truth. I realize that’s controversial and bold, but my reasoning is thus. Much if not most of the scientific and technological achievement we enjoy today is a direct result of the efforts of philosophers and scientists throughout history to reject the notion that we have discovered and know the truth, and to challenge what was accepted through words, actions, experimentation, and innovation. Today’s truth was once heresy. The priests who dispensed truth from the pulpit in medieval times would be dismissed in today’s world. Much of what we call knowledge was once regarded as rubbish. We think we are smarter and wiser than those who came before us, but they thought the same, and they were wrong. We are all human, individually and collectively fallible. We can all be wrong. Even if they spend their entire lives studying something, scientists and experts can be wrong. In order to protect the rights of people now and in the future to continue to search for truth, we must acknowledge our own limitations and imperfections. Even the best of us may be wrong. Even the worst of us may occasionally be right. We are not gods to declare what is true and what is not. The moment we appoint anyone to the role of ultimately deciding what can or cannot be accepted as true, we are taking the first small steps towards totalitarianism. No expert, no committee, no president, no congress, not myself, can be entrusted with such power. The freedom to disagree in even the most ridiculous and nonsensical way must be preserved, and the freedom of the people to follow whatever nonsense they choose must also be preserved, because if the freedom of speech, the freedom of thought, the freedom of judgement and belief, is abridged in any way, it is an empty freedom. Once freedom is fenced, the fences can be moved and it can be made smaller and smaller. I would rather risk the unknown dangers of free fools because I am certain that power corrupts. I will endure tremendous levels of stupidity for the sake of the freedom of each of us to choose our wisdom to follow. You choose to follow expertise and training. In most cases, I do as well, but I have too little faith in humanity to ever trust in any person or people completely. In a free society where ideas can be exchanged and each is free to think and believe in what, and in whom, he wishes, there need be no irreconcilable conflict between us. All that is required is for each of us to respect the freedoms of each other.
I could probably write more but I’m getting tired and this is already probably too much. Though we often disagree, I consider you to be one of the more thoughtful and considered commenters here, so thank you for the debate. I have enjoyed it.
Thanks, that is both admirable and consistent. I shall be re-reading that. Just two comments:
On objective truth it may be hard to agree on what it is, but if you say that it does not exist, then it is obviously a waste of time to look for it. Why spend time finding out how disease works when no one has any reason to be convinced by what you say and our actions will anyway be determined by whatever the uninformed think is the better story? This is what Foucault says, as I understand it: There is no such thing as truth, there is only who has the power to impose his views. In such a world the sensible thing to do is to forget about truth and concentrate on getting power, by whatever means.
It is inconistent for the Democrats to stick to “the moral high ground and treat[] Trump seriously as a political figure instead of dismissing him and breaking precedent “. They were in a cleft stick: If they accept Trump as a normal candidate within normal rules they are also accepting that his behaviour is normal and acceptable: The open lies, the threats to put his opponents in prison and take revenge on his enemies, the canoodling with the FSB, the blatant contempt for any kind of procedure or restraint on the whim of the great Trump. Why should people not vote for him if the Democrats say he is OK? On the other hand if they take the moral high ground they have to say that this person is completely unaceptable and dismiss him. If you really think he is unprecedently awful, how can you say that it is more important not breaking precedent?
You make two good points. My answer to the first is that in life it has been my experience it is the journey, the struggle, that is more important than the destination. Climbing a mountain can be a profound and worthy experience. Is it any less profound or less worthy if there is no summit to reach? Striving for the impossible even knowing it is impossible can be its own reward. I was once told by a wise teacher to imitate Jesus and Socrates. I cannot hope to meet such a high standard, but in the attempt to do so, I better myself and the world around me. I have always believed that the ‘light of truth’ in Plato’s allegory of the cave is not truth itself, but the continuous search for truth, a state of mind that leads us to continue to question ourselves, and the world where we find ourselves. Like a mathematical asymptote, truth is an ideal we can only approach but never touch. That does not mean we should not try to get as near as possible. I do not mean precisely that objective truth does not exist in an empirical or logical sense, only that we can never be completely certain that what we believe to be true actually is true. The only way to keep the path open is to continually examine, continually doubt, even the most fundamental principles. A free and open society committed to absolute freedom of speech, thought, and belief allows the search for truth to continue by forbidding any one person or group from declaring that the search is over and no more questions need be asked. The light of truth is not something that should be caged, bound, and harnessed to some machine that runs a society.
As to the second part, you may well be right. There may have been no better way to respond to Trump. Even in 2016, it may have been too late to stop the avalanche coming down the mountain. It may be that there never was any way to stop Trump or whatever charismatic (and I use that word loosely and reluctantly) leader popped up to harness populist, anti-globalist, anti-elite rage. I have always thought a more subdued, measured, and restrained approach to Trump would have been more effective, but I may be wrong. It may have failed just as surely as their hyperbolic denunciations and their banging the drum about ‘threats to democracy’ failed. I will not claim I am a prophet. As to the party leaders, I struggle to have much sympathy for them. They had the opportunity to embrace their own populist champion in 2016 and 2020, but chose instead to actively undermine the Bernie Sanders campaign. They succeeded in stopping Bernie where the Republican establishment failed to stop Trump. It may be that the course of history was set for all of us by the success of one cadre of plutocrats and the failure of another.
As to the question in your other comment, what you have to understand is that America has a deep seated resentment of elites and elitism. Americans don’t like the idea of being told what to do or what to believe by anybody. American politicians cannot play on their qualifications, their expertise, their wisdom, or their skill. None of that works, because that’s not what the people want. The American people believe that they are in charge and politicians answer to them, not the other way round. This is why Hillary’s ‘basket of deplorables’ and Romney’s dismissal of ‘Americans who don’t pay taxes’ were pilloried endlessly and basically played on a loop by the other side’s media. Americans eat this up. It makes them angry, and as many a loser of many a war from the revolution up to the present can attest, it isn’t wise to pick a fight with a bunch of angry Americans. In 2016, one could by a t-shirt that said ‘deplorable’ on the front of it. If you want to motivate an American to do something, tell them it can’t be done. They’ll do it anyway just for spite even if it’s stupid, costly, and pointless. They love Trump because they demanded a wall and he tried to build one. It didn’t really matter that a wall was never going to actually stop illegal immigration. What matters is that Trump gave them what they wanted. He obeyed the people and tried to keep the promise he made.
He’s not the first either. Trump is not an anomaly. His rise is consistent with America’s political history, just not the parts since the end of WWII most Europeans are familiar with. He is not the first people’s champion to come along and wreck the designs of elites to the delight of the common folk. There have been figures very much like him before, men who became historically popular less because of what they did than because of what they represented and who they opposed. It isn’t the first time a popular champion has risen from nowhere against entrenched elites. Some, like Theodore Roosevelt, who was made vice president by elites who wanted his entirely too reformist views out of the way, or Grover Cleveland, the only other man to win two nonconsecutive presidential elections, succeed, while others, like William Jennings Bryan and Huey Long, fail. Some both fail and succeed. One of the most striking comparisons to Donald Trump has his face printed on every American twenty dollar bill, despite being unworthy of the honor in the eyes of most educated and wealthy men at the time and most historians now. Andrew Jackson was as much the champion of rural America and the common folk that Trump is. He shut down the bank of the United States, which contributed to the panic of 1837 and led to a deep and prolonged recession, but was loved and revered by the people anyway because they wanted the bank of the US shut down, and Andrew did it, consequences be damned. He also was responsible for the so called Trail of Tears that evicted Native Americans and marched them across the country, which while considered horrible by modern sentiments, was also cheered by the people of the time. The actual results don’t really matter. The important thing is that the people reminded the ‘elites’ who’s in charge of this country.
I’m well aware of the parallels here. Trump’s second reign will also have consequences. His tariffs may trigger a global depression, but the people will cheer for him anyway and continue to blame the bankers, the corporations, and the elites, who they already blame for all the closed factories and the ‘made in China’ stamped on everything we buy. They’ll suck it up and take the punch just to get something to change and then they’ll get up and start again. Americans may not all be educated but I have met very few who I could consider stupid. Trump is chaos and destruction and most know it. He is purposeful destruction meant to remind the elite capital class that this is America, and in America the people rule. They see America as a house they built taken over by elites. They want the elites to recognize whose house this is and who’s in charge here. Failing that, they can and will burn down the house to build a new one, consequences be damned. Like the Russians, they will burn their own fields and starve themselves so long as their enemies starve along with them. America, like Russia, is unconquerable.
This is perhaps not the most satisfying answer, but it hopefully sheds some light on your question of ‘why’. I saw something like this coming long before Trump. I had read enough American history and understood the climate well enough to expect another Jackson, or Roosevelt, or Cleveland, or Caesar. I’m just disappointed in the form it took. I could name dozens of better candidates to lead a populist reform movement, but the American people consider this a fight for the future and the soul of the nation and Trump was the nearest available weapon. I’m sure in his second term he’ll find all new ways to bumble around and make us look like idiots for electing him. I’m sure we’ll again be treated to the spectacle of pointless feuds with the media and incoherent tweets at 3 AM. The people will live with that because the anti-elite streak in America runs that deep. Once again, the people have reminded the elites who is in charge in a distinctly American fashion, that is impulsively and with reckless disregard for the consequences. All we can do now is recognize the situation for what it is and hope for the best.
Thanks for continuing – much appreciated.
On truth I agree with what you say, but I’ll add one thing. The uncertainty can be handled by, technically, Bayesian reasoning – basically that all we get is probabilities, not certainties, and that we base our probabilities on which theory best explain the available facts. That still leaves plenty of room for disagreement, but for the effort to be useful at all it still requires two things: That people agree to be bound by the facts, and that if one theory is strongly suggested by the available facts we base our actions on it – even as we search for new facts to disprove it and replace it with something we believe in more. On topics from climate change to COVID to election fraud to institutional racism etc. a lot of people have basically opted out of the search for truth.
On the reasons for Trump you confirm what I had thought. Which is too bad – I had really hoped you could have shown me I was wrong. My comparison was with a teenager who gets so pissed off at not having his own room that he burns the house down. Childish, reckless, heedless of consequences, and only making things worse for himself. As I understand you, Americans refuse to accept any limits, even from reality, and refuse to be bullied by facts. If the world is not the way they want it, they just find someone to blame for the shortfall. Trump was not elected in spite of his crude lying and his manifest desire to destroy the system. People voted for him because he was going to ruin the government and cause lots of damage – because that is what they wanted. Revenge, basically. Smash what you have, and who cares what will replace it?
If you are someone who wants a functional government that can deal with problems that leaves you with a dilemma. There is no point in appealing to facts, because a majority of the electorate does not believe in facts. There is no point in promising to get the best outcomes, because if people cannot get exactly what they want, possible or not, they will smash the system out of pique, and to hell with outcomes. I can see only two rational responses. Either you give up, get rich, and find a place for yourself and your family in a gated community or New Zealand, and let everybody else stew in the problems they have, after all, voted for themselves. Or you learn to deceive the voters so well that you can get elected and try to improve matters for them, even though that is the opposite of what they actually want. You run on kayfabe, basically, and hide the reality of what you are actually doing, Personally I am not in the running and do not have to choose. I just have to come to terms with the fact that the world is dominated by the kind of people who elected Trump – with their eyes wide open.
I didn’t expect my reply would satisfy you and you’re not wrong. My advice is to stop wasting your time on people, governments, and debate except as a way to entertain oneself and perhaps better oneself through the free exchange of idea. If you’re expecting humanity to be better than what it always has been, you are doomed to be disappointed. Progress is not real. It is an invention of human hubris, nothing more. A human being born in 2020 is not genetically distinguishable from a human being born in 2000 BC. The world as it is and people as they are fail to meet your expectations. I sympathize but I have moved beyond blaming people for what they are, and I refuse to discriminate one against another. The differences produced by education and ‘expertise’, are microscopic next to the verifiable and observable similarities of one human being to the next. In my view, education and learning are far less important than the interplay between genetic predispositions and individual narrative experience in terms of defining the basic paramaters of the individual human being. Categorizing them using any criteria, be it race, religion, or education is, to my mind, worse than useless.
Indeed, the attitude you display toward the uneducated working class Trump voters has been partially caused the anti-intellectual biases that so frustrate you. Humans function collectively on the basis of in-groups and out-groups. The sciences of sociology and psychology tell us this. You cannot simply follow one scientific discipline but ignore others. When educated people begin to differentiate themselves from others, the others then return the favor. When you declare that there is a ‘right’ viewpoint on COVID, climate change, and systemic racism, you necessitate that those who disagree will simply draw the line themselves and form their own in-group around the ‘wrong’ viewpoint. Your side has inadvertently contributed greatly to this Trumpian nightmare by refusing to step down off your high horses. You insist that you are right according to reason and science. Fine, but if in your zeal for own rightness you empower the mechanism of your defeat, how enlightened can you be?
History seldom cares who is right or who is wrong in the moment. It cares who wins, and if you don’t win, you don’t get to write the history. Let me strongly suggest that if you want to ‘win’ by convincing Trump voters, you should first examine your message and alter your approach, because as things stand, you may be on the right side of reason and science but the wrong side of history. It’s happened before, to horrible result. If Trump really is Hitler, then it bears remembering how history remembers the Weimar government that preceded him. It’s failures and ineffectiveness are remembered by history as a cause of Hitler’s rise. The history written one hundred years from now will no doubt cite the inequalities of globalism and the failure of the ruling class to address these issues effectively as contributing to the rise of populist figures. I don’t believe it will be as awful as you think, but from your point of view, don’t you think a bit of humility before the people is warranted given the stakes? History is an unforgiving judge. To be right is not enough. You must be right and be victorious. If Trump is victorious and wrong, history will vilify him, and you for failing to stop him. History is not fair.
If you are absolutely determined that your way is right and that no compromises should be made, and if deceiving the masses and doing what’s right and good despite them is the only way you can conceive of moving forward, then I suppose yes, that’s what you should do. If that is the goal, then the evidence suggests, again, that you’re losing and now might be a good time to reassess your tactics, both individually and collectively. You’re going to have to come up with something besides corporate shills like Kamala Harris and risk the wrath of international finance. While the international aristocrat cabal is on your side, you will continue to lose. I’ll repeat once again the need for an alternative narrative coming from the institutional left, something like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. The corporations, the establishment, big business are political poison. This is classic class warfare which I would expect most left leaning people would understand. The proletariat is rising against the bourgeoisie and the Democrats are siding with capital class. I never thought I’d be arguing with a Democrat using Marxist terminology but here we are. I am assuming you are a Democrat or whatever the European equivalent is. The Democrats still have an excellent opportunity to return to their ideological roots and become the party of the people once again, though they’ll have to wean themselves off the corporate cash spigot to do it.
The answer is Democratic Socialism 101. Tax, spend, redistribute, regulate. Break up monopolies and empower entrepreneurs. Focus laser guided karma on the wealthiest of the wealthy. Ignore the gentry, don’t try to micromanage the economy, and focus on the global players, the multinational corporations, the aristocrats, global finance who are gaming the system to their advantage. Make it so there is nowhere they can run and nowhere they can hide from taxation and the power of the state. Be the avenging angel of the people against the injustices of capitalism. The old version of socialism will still work well enough in terms of convincing people and provided it doesn’t go too far, it can result in decent societies (see Scandinavia). The new, woke, global, social justice version is objectively doomed, so don’t fetter yourself to a corpse. The fact is the Democrats have options. They just don’t like them, and maybe you don’t either, and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you’ll see the appeal of left-centered populism after four more years of Trump. I’m not holding my breath.
Again, thanks for continuing. Actually I’d agree with a lot of what you say, in particular the need for some different politics that build on what people want. But also – that is my contribution – on what is actually possible. Let me clarify a bit though:
I think the idea of ‘institutional racism’ is offensive nonsense – I just put it in the list to show that the right did not have a monopoly on that kind of thing. For the rest I am what passes for centre-right in Scandinavia (where I am from), and anti-woke and pro-life to boot. I really prefer peaceful coexistence, but if war it has to be, I will fight for my own race and sex (straight white male), not against it. So I do not identify with the Democrats any more than the Republicans (and I am not ‘in politics’ anyway), and I can see plenty of reasons to vote against Kamala just on Democrat policies, never mind her competence.
As for Trump, comparing him to Hitler is way too high a bar, and he does not have the stature or intellect to be Mussolini. Ferdinand Marcos, Idi Amin, or someone from one of the more corrupt banana republics is a much better comparison – but that is hardly what you would want for the US, is it now?
I take your point that educated arrogance has caused a lot of the political splitting, but I cannot take responsibility for it. I know perfectly well that not having a college degree does not mean you are not smart – and anyway people like Johan Strauss on this board who boasts of his PhD, MD, and IQ prove pretty thoroughly that being an idiot does not depend on education. But for exactly that reason I cannot follow you all the way. You do not need a college degree to go with the basic idea that you should base your thinking on facts and not conspiracy theories. Or to realise that deliberately voting for something that will destroy the system that keeps your society running is not a smart idea unless you have some idea about what should take its place. Educated or not, you can be rational if you want to be. And voting for Trump is not a rational act.
On another topic: You seem to be a thoughtful person who believes in evidence – so could you help me out? Can you give me the reasons why a reasonable and rational person would decide to vote for Trump in this election? With the best will in the world I cannot see them – and that puts me at a disadvantage. If I ever want to convince anybody to change their vote I really need to understand where they are coming from.
Oh and in addition to what I wrote above, it would help to put up a candidate that actually dares to break from globalist orthodoxy, ignores the donor class, and tries to build a platform that represents what the voters want, not what the corporations or the academics want. If you’re at the bottom of a hole, step one is always to stop digging. Woke isn’t going to win. Globalism isn’t going to win. There’s no amount of money, advertising, or influence that will change that now. If the Democrats want to reverse the current trends, they need to ditch the corporations, ditch the banks, ditch the woke, and ditch the davos men, ditch the ivory tower professors, period. They can’t win if they keep dragging that anchor around with them. Get rid of that, and some of the Trump voters will listen. Not all, but some. As far as you personally speaking to Trump voters, it depends whether you mean on Unherd or in general. I wouldn’t waste time trying to convince people on here of anything. The website caters to independent minded non-conformist types like myself who don’t align well with any political faction or party. If you want to influence people who voted for him in the real world, the best advice I can give is to ignore the man himself and speak to the issues they care about, immigration, fair rather than free trade, bringing back the factories, reducing inequality, restricting the power of big business, etc. Just don’t make the same arguments they’ve heard from the globalist blob for thirty some years. They’ll recognize that and tune you out pretty quick. If you want to state something Trump does is wrong, just say you think it’s wrong and say why and leave it at that. Be simple, straightforward. Say what you believe and don’t apologize or equivocate. People may or may not agree, but middle Americans respect honesty and direct language even when they don’t agree with an opinion.
The assertion that 2020 was a stolen election may or may not be true but it is not ridiculous. Until a fair and detailed account is made about the ten million total vote shortfall between the 2020 and 2024 elections the shadow of fraud remains.
I did notice that and it certainly did give me pause. I still consider it extremely unlikely that someone could deliberately turn an election result given that it isn’t known how many votes will be needed in what places beforehand, and I still think Trump was foolish to make such a claim without conclusive evidence. It was certainly ridiculous when he made the assertion. It looks less ridiculous only in light of the results of this election. Hindsight is always 20/20. I maintained at the time that Trump’s assertion of a stolen election was ridiculous and I will remain consistent to that until proven otherwise. On the other hand, I am far less certain of my assertion than I was just one month ago.
Logically, one cannot help but question such a surplus of total votes versus the previous and subsequent elections, and further wonder how these extra votes overwhelmingly favored one candidate over the other to such an extreme degree. I cannot and will not ignore evidence that contradicts my previous assertion, even if such evidence is not conclusive proof. I know enough about statistics to understand that outliers certainly can exist as legitimate results, but they can also signify the possibility of a problem in the data collection methods or some other procedural error. In this case, it could also mark the possibility of fraud. In a less politically fraught era, an investigation would be in order to determine exactly how such an outlier was produced to reassure voters of all sides that elections are fair and mostly free of fraud or cheating. In a democracy, there is little that is more critical than the perception that elections are fair and legitimate. However, given the results of this election and the fraught political climate, it may be better in this case to simply let sleeping dogs lie.
Trouble is, I could say the same about the Steele Dossier. It was a plausible enough story and it fitted with a number of observations. I never put it higher than a maybe, and since there is no reliable evidence for it and the people who back it all seem heavily biased I now discount it completely. If I apply your methods, can I say that until the FSB opens their archives we have to consider it as reliable enough to cast a shadow over Trump?
Obama politicized the FBI, DOJ & IRS before Trump entered the political fray.
But you are right. Before the 21st century politicians respected the risks of so blatantly abusing the bureaucrats for such blatantly biased ends.
I think the social media amplification of extremists has warped the powers behind the politicians to loose their bearings.
I fail to see any difference between Obama and his predecessors. Are you sure you’re not letting partisan perceptions run away with you.
As an Aussie trying to follow all these shenanigans I am grateful for your explanation. No prizes to the guy below, Champagne Socialist, who doesn’t have to read it if he/she so chooses.
If there was any foolish doubt that the American Left was any better or more virtuous than the American (Trumpist) Right than there you have it…
Moreover, any thought that Socialism somehow how removes class differences and eliminates privilege welp just a reminder that the in crowd will always take care of their own…
Meh. We know Biden is corrupt. He’ll probably give himself a pardon as well. Washington is littered with Bidens, in both parties.
He has, in a sense, pardoned himself. The wording of the pardon clearly states that Hunter cannot be prosecuted for any federal illegal acts between January 1, 2014 and December 1 2024, thereby shielding Joe from any blow back from the Congressional investigations into Hunter’s foreign agent shenanigans (which could possibly pull Joe into the legal crosshairs).
After 50 years of grifting and a mountain of evidence showing the pattern of pathological lying, corruption and plagiarism, Biden should be given a statue in Washington DC to cement his legacy for posterity.
When the new administration is in place, Congress or the DOJ might pursue investigations of Joe and Hunter Biden’s associates in the payola schemes the Biden family has been running. For associates’ conduct still ‘live’ for prosecution within statute of limitation rules, Hunter can be called to testify but could not ‘plead the fifth’ and decline to give evidence to Congress or the Courts, because he himself cannot be prosecuted under Joe’s pardon terms. He would have to answer, and therefore is at risk of prosecution for contempt for silence, or for false testimony. It’s not over yet folks……
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You’re just about to nail Hillary for Benghazi too, right?
Who on earth would nail Hillary? Disgusting!
…couldn’t get it up I’m afraid.
I would really like to know how much influence Ukraine got for its payments to Hunter (and thus to Joe) from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Is there any connection between those payments and support for Ukraine in their war with Russia? It’s very hard not to be cynical– Hunter could hardly have been receiving those large payments because of his business expertise.
It was a Right wing conspiracy theory that Hunter Biden had committed any wrongdoing.
And now he has been pardoned!
In Biden’s statement, he was furious that the President’s son should be held to a higher standard than ordinary people.
And, Biden has trashed the Democrats claim to be 100% behind background gun control checks.
Just lie on the form. Biden has explained that nobody can be expected to be prosecuted for lying on a background gun control check. ‘..people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form’
Hunter’s pardon means all ongoing investigations against him will be closed, and cancel potential risks to judicial process. This then removes some of the blocks the DOJ use to prevent the release of documents relating to ongoing cases. With Trump’s pro-transparency appointees coming in, this might not be the end of the matter…
Biden’s relationship to the Democratic Party is now a bit like that old Latino gangster in Breaking Bad who is wheelchair bound and mute following a stroke, but goes out blowing up his mortal enemy who was once his business partner.
We need to be generous. Maybe Sleepy Joe ‘accidentally misled himself’ to use the parlance of Queensland politics.
I’m no Trump fan but he never did pursue prosecution of her and it was FBI Director Comey that made a mess of the email server situation. She used a private server and email address to conduct Govt business. Illegal and try that with your employer if you don’t want to keep your job…For that he got the Steele Dossier and a 3 year investigation of Russian collusion. The CIA, NSA and FBI couldn’t find any….lawfare indeed
I’m no Trump fan but he never did pursue prosecution of Hillary and it was FBI Director Comey that made a mess of the email server situation. She used a private server and email address to conduct Govt business. Illegal and try that with your employer if you don’t want to keep your job…For that he got the Steele Dossier and a 3 year investigation of Russian collusion. The CIA, NSA and FBI couldn’t find any….lawfare indeed
By pardoning his son, despite previous denials, Joe could have been giving a big middle finger to the Dem Party for kicking him to the curb. I think his demotion to make way for Kamala was something he never got over and now he couldn’t care less about the parties fortunes.
I believe that Biden’s immediate support for Kamala as he was forced to withdraw was his (or Jill’s) way of getting back at the Democratic elite for that ouster. He made it awkward for them to support anyone else, and he knew she was a total disaster. So this pardon is his second middle finger IMHO.
Those countless commentators and writers who, so often, initially qualify their forthcoming observations with something like “I don’t like Trump but …” would be taken more seriously if they came straight to the point, rather than tiresomely signalling their virtue and supposed social acceptability by distancing themselves from any possible positive association with The Donald!
I preface mine with “I like Trump”. I don’t get much flak from Harris supporters.
Trump, Biden. Leaders of the free for me world! What can you expect from people who cheerlead terrorists in their efforts at a genocide of the victims who refuse to take it lying down?
No dirt on Hunter pre 1914 then? He didn’t just go rogue overnight.
If Hunter is pardoned he is definitely guilty and he must therefore have many guilty accomplices. These type of people don’t err on their own. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kamala wasn’t privy to such deeds herself. Biden was Obama’s protegé. Heaven forbid any fingers point to St Barack and Queen Michelle. The bottom would really fall out of Democrat World.
Begs the question of history books’ accuracy with so many ‘victors’.
The only problem, and a big one at that, is that Hunter Biden cannot invoke the 5th Amendment if he is called to testify on investigations that pertain to events that occurred during his Pardon period. He either sells out his old man and family or spends a long time in jail. Love it.
Oh, oh! I can answer that! Joe Biden.
Shabby ends as shabby began and as shabby has always been.
This is actually a problem for Biden. Hunter loses his Fifth Amendment right due to this pardon. This means he and his family and those that participated in his crimes have exposure if he is called before a grand jury or congress to testify. It also doesn’t mean he has great protection from state laws. If he doesn’t testify truthfully that is a new crime.
How is it that the the Cosa Nostra were able to attain such wealth and power in the Democratic run cities of New York, Chicago and New Jersey ?
How was organised crime such as the Adams family in Islington, Krays in East London and Charlie Richardson able to attain wealth and power in Labour districts of London?