Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden's pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, came out of nowhere. For the better part of a year, he said he wouldn't do it. Unlike most 11th-hour pardons, Biden announced it a month and a half before leaving office. The news hit inboxes on a Sunday night before many were back in the office after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Some are calling for another pardon: President-elect Donald Trump.
Marc Thiessen, a conservative Washington Post columnist, and Danielle Pletka, a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, first made the case in June 2023, days after Trump was served his first indictment. Allowing the charges to pile up against Trump, the two argued, would further delegitimize the Justice Department in the eyes of millions of Trump's followers. If Trump went to trial, they continued, it "would be one of the most divisive events in the history of our republic. It would set a new precedent — and create enormous pressure on the next Republican president to go after President Biden, his family and other Democrats."
They weren't alone. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said Biden should pardon Trump, saying it would make Biden "the big guy" and Trump "the little guy." "And No. 2," Romney continued, "it's not going to get resolved before the election. It's not going to have an impact before the election. And, frankly, the country doesn't want to have to go through prosecuting a former president."
Romney, Thiessen and Pletka were all right on some fronts. Trump did go to trial (in a separate case), and Americans' trust in the judiciary sank further. Trump has yet to be sentenced, though, nor has he stood trial for his other indictments, after the Supreme Court offered partial immunity to presidents. And since Trump won the election, the former president won't be tried, after all.
It's likely Trump will never be held responsible for his alleged or convicted crimes. In Georgia, arguments for Trump's election interference case were canceled. In New York, sentencing in the hush money case has been delayed indefinitely. The Jan. 6 case in Washington, D.C., is moving toward dismissal. Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing that investigation, plans to step down before Trump can fire him.
That doesn't mark the end of the battle, though. Thiessen and Pletka fear we are "at the start of a vicious cycle" where "Republicans now argue they are justified in weaponizing the justice system to go after Democrats, and Democrats then feel free to retaliate when they regain power — sending the country spiraling into a miasma of partisan litigation."
Biden clearly feared such a cycle when he pardoned his son. "In trying to break Hunter," Biden wrote, "they've tried to break me — and there's no reason to believe it will stop here." When Trump takes office, Biden suggested, his son could be the subject of a "miscarriage of justice."
Pardoning Trump, Sen. Joe Manchin argued this week, could put an end to it all. "It would have gone down a lot more balanced, if you will," Manchin said. A pair of Democratic strategists made the same argument in a Fox News op-ed. On CNN, ex-Nixon White House counsel John Dean suggested Biden should strategically pair a pardon of Trump with pardons for his allies that may be targeted by Trump. "Take the wind out of retribution/revenge!" he said.
To Thiessen and Pletka, though, the move would serve a higher purpose. "If we do not want to go through an endless cycle of what goes around comes around," they wrote, "a bold act of statesmanship is required: Biden should announce that he is issuing a blanket pardon for Trump, allowing him to start his presidency with a legal tabula rasa."
The plan has its doubters. MSNBC's Hayes Brown argues that the move, even intended to unite the country, could be wildly unpopular, as was Ford's decision to pardon Nixon. "The trouble is there is no such thing as a unilateral reconciliation; it is a dialogue by its very nature," he added. "It's true that Biden offering a pardon for Trump could be framed as outreach to the president-elect's followers. But what, then, could be expected from this show of good faith? Are there reciprocal steps that would bring the MAGA movement away from the edge and toward a more united country?"
Biden has said he would not pardon Trump. In May 2020, while running for president, he committed to never pardon his rival. When asked again in May 2023, he laughed.
How will history smile on Biden? He ran as a bridge beyond Trump, then handicapped his party's efforts to defeat Trump by staying in the race. He pledged not to pardon Hunter, then he did. That decision, critics say, could tarnish his legacy. A pardon of Trump would further complicate it.
