Joe Biden has pardoned his son, and excused Donald Trump’s next move

US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump now agree on one thing: the Biden Justice Department has been politicised.

In pardoning his son Hunter Biden on Sunday night (Monday AEDT), the incumbent president sounded a lot like his successor in complaining about selective prosecution and political pressure, questioning the fairness of a system that Biden had until now long defended.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” Biden said in the statement announcing the pardon.

“Here’s the truth,” he added. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

Biden’s decision to use the extraordinary power of executive clemency to wipe out his son’s convictions on gun and tax charges came despite repeated statements by him and his aides that he would not do so.

Just last summer, after his son was convicted at trial, the president rejected the idea of a pardon and said, “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process.” The statement he issued on Sunday night made clear he did not accept the outcome or respect the process.

The pardon and Biden’s stated rationale for granting it will inevitably muddy the political waters as Trump prepares to take office with plans to use the Justice Department and FBI to pursue “retribution” against his political adversaries.

Trump has long argued that the justice system has been weaponised against him and that he is the victim of selective prosecution, much like Biden has now said his son was.

Their arguments are, of course, different in important respects. Trump contends that the two indictments against him by Biden’s Justice Department amounted to a partisan witch-hunt targeting the sitting president’s main rival.

Biden did not explicitly accuse the Justice Department of being biased against his family, but suggested that it was influenced by Republican politicians who have waged a long public campaign assailing Hunter Biden.

As it happens, the Justice Department has rejected both accusations. The prosecutions of Trump and the younger Biden were each handled by separate special counsels appointed specifically to insulate the cases from politics, and senior department officials have denied that politics entered the equation against either man.

But Biden’s pardon will make it harder for Democrats to defend the integrity of the Justice Department and stand against Trump’s unapologetic plans to use it for political purposes even as he seeks to install Kash Patel, an adviser who has vowed to “come after” the president-elect’s enemies, as the next director of the FBI.

It will also be harder for Democrats to criticise Trump for his prolific use of the pardon power to absolve friends and allies, some of whom could have been witnesses against him in previous investigations.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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