Hunter Biden Pardon
BY Herschel Smith
1 month ago
The clear-headed Stephen Stamboulieh assesses the potential fallout of the pardon of Hunter Biden.
While “The Big Guy” had done his deed with his son, I still think there’s more to this story than we’ve seen or has even been written about.
If the Hunter Biden cases continued, all sorts of things could have come out at trial, including collusion with the power brokers in Ukraine between both Bidens.
This is an attempt to keep this all under wraps, so the pardon not only protects his son, but him as well (at least insofar as obvious and public disclosure under the rules of the court).
Discovery is a bitch.
On December 3, 2024 at 12:11 am, Frank Clarke said:
Every silver lining has a cloud…
https://dispatchesfromheck.blogspot.com/2024/12/every-silver-lining-has-cloud.html
On December 3, 2024 at 9:27 am, Randolph Scott said:
Oh it’s hanging time again, your gonna leave us,
On December 5, 2024 at 4:22 pm, streamfortyseven said:
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, indeed, there is precedent from 1974:
“Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon.power conferred upon me b) Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.”
THE NIXON PARDON: LIMITS ON THE BENIGN PREROGATIVE by Hugh C. Macgill, at https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1319&context=law_papers
Note that the pardon could be overturned for lack of specificity – if you’ve read the actual Biden pardon above, that specific crimes are mentioned – and for those, the pardon would hold. As for the unspecified actions, there is lack of specificity which would contravene the original intent behind the pardon power. If such a general pardon were upheld, then an Administration could perform all sorts of illegal actions, and then the culpable actors could be relieved of all responsibility for their bad acts by such a pardon, and that would make for disastrously bad public policy. As Justice Brandeis put it, in his famous dissent in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928): “Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” Brandeis, J. in Olmstead, at 485, at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/277/438/. Alas, the Nixon pardon was never tested in court.
And yet, there may be consequences which Joe Biden and his Administration may not have taken into account:
“In the 1915 case of Burdick v. U.S., George Burdick refused a pre-emptive pardon … because accepting it would have meant that he could not claim his Fifth Amendment privilege when called to give testimony relating to the pardoned crime before a grand jury.” https://www.brookings.edu/articles/presidential-pardons-settled-law-unsettled-issues-and-a-downside-for-trump/
The pardon has immediate effect – and Biden is still in office until 21 January of next year – that’s nearly two months. The effect of the pre-emptive pardon is that Hunter may be compelled to answer questions by, say, a House committee – and he wouldn’t be able to plead the Fifth Amendment. They could serve him by Friday with the subpoena, and have him in on Monday, December 9 – plenty of time to ask lots and lots of questions. And they could subpoena lots and lots of documents – and a lot of people will still be very much on the hook. There’s a good reason that pardons are done on the last day of an Administration. https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/the-hunter-biden-pardon