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Victor Davis Hanson: Biden’s Paranoid Pardons and Leftist Morality
American Greatness ^ | 9 Dec, 2024 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 12/09/2024 7:02:07 AM PST by MtnClimber

This unprecedented pardon is not aberrant. It is characteristic of the left’s recent contempt for the rule of law.

Pardoner-in-Chief

ardoner-in-Chief

Joe Biden has now established two precedents in presidential history.

First, he “pardoned” his own son Hunter.

No prior president has ever tried that shameless act, which is an affront to the entire hallowed notion of “equality under the law.”.

Second, he did so in a way that no president has rarely, if ever, pardoned anyone.

Hunter, a convicted federal felon awaiting sentencing, was gifted by his father a blanket exemption from federal prosecution over the entire past decade (2014-2024).

Biden thus exempted Hunter from a series of much-discussed past criminal activities and provided further pardons for any federal criminal exposure occurring over the last ten years—yet to turn up.

Given the Biden suppression of the justice system and the media’s complicity in hiding the Biden family’s criminality, it is quite possible that in the next few years, disinterested prosecutors might finally expose Hunter Biden’s long-suppressed, sordid career. And that could mean possible criminal exposure for three generations of Bidens.

Third, in the remaining waning 40 days of his now nonperforming presidency, Biden threatens to establish yet another presidential precedent. He contemplates issuing pardons to a variety of controversial cronies, bureaucrats, and officers—even though none of them have yet been indicted or even are under federal investigation.

Worse, Biden completed his shameless trifecta by breaking his serial pledge, voiced at least six times, and most prominently as a 2024 campaign plug, unequivocally not to pardon Hunter Biden.

That performance-art braggadocio was serially greeted—by design—with glee in the media.

On spec, the vow supposedly contrasted Biden’s “reverence for the rule of law” with a purportedly legally insubordinate Trump.

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: vdh; victordavishanson
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1 posted on 12/09/2024 7:02:07 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

Will Pedo Joe try blanket pardons for the lawfare crowd?


2 posted on 12/09/2024 7:02:48 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: texas booster

VDH ping


3 posted on 12/09/2024 7:03:32 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

Modern Democrats are traitors AND criminals...


4 posted on 12/09/2024 7:07:19 AM PST by Democrat = party of treason
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To: MtnClimber

BTTT


5 posted on 12/09/2024 7:09:33 AM PST by nopardons
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To: MtnClimber
I think an incumbent president running for re-election should only be allowed to pardon anyone up to the election. None after unless he wins.
Then there wouldn't be all this preemptive pardoning to hurt the incoming pres.
6 posted on 12/09/2024 7:12:48 AM PST by TangoLimaSierra (⭐⭐To the Left, The Truth is Right Wing Violence⭐⭐)
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To: MtnClimber

Be prepared to be outraged. Joe’s handlers are busy preparing the pardon list that will be released on Jan 19th.
Most likely they are actually selling pardons. That’s how Clinton went out.


7 posted on 12/09/2024 7:20:46 AM PST by DeplorablePaul
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To: TangoLimaSierra

I think that is a great idea. Could you imagine the impact of
Biden pardoning Hunter before the election?


8 posted on 12/09/2024 7:25:05 AM PST by Bayou Dittohead
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To: Democrat = party of treason

I am still trying to figure out how you issue a pardon to somebody that has not yet been charged with a crime. There has to be a limitation.


9 posted on 12/09/2024 7:37:55 AM PST by Right Brother
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To: TangoLimaSierra

Agreed. I would add that there should be no judicial appointments allowed during this time. This might need a constitutional amendment, but worth a try.


10 posted on 12/09/2024 7:39:36 AM PST by RightField
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To: Right Brother

“Both during and after the American Civil War, pardons for ex-Confederates were given by US presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson and were usually extended for those who had served in the military above the rank of colonel or civilians who had exercised political power under the Confederate government.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardons_for_ex-Confederates


11 posted on 12/09/2024 7:48:46 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: texas booster
Hunter’s plea-bargaining attorneys once threatened to call President Joe Biden into court to testify on Hunter’s behalf. The veiled subtext was a threat to put the president on record in a federal trial as vouching for his son and thus likely denying when cross-examined by the judge whether Joe himself had ever received foreign cash (i.e., Joe’s checks labeled as “loan repayments” or seen as “gifts” or undisclosed but routed through Hunter or a Biden sibling)

I'd completely forgotten about that! Hunter betrayed Joe long before the Dim cabal leaders betrayed Joe and took him off the ballot.

12 posted on 12/09/2024 7:51:57 AM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: MtnClimber

Bfl


13 posted on 12/09/2024 7:52:38 AM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: MtnClimber

VDH, speaking truth to infinity.


14 posted on 12/09/2024 7:52:39 AM PST by New Perspective (As Leonard Cohen said once in an interview, “You won’t like what comes after America”)
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To: MtnClimber

Xiden pardoned himself the past ten years, Hunter was just in the way.


15 posted on 12/09/2024 7:54:03 AM PST by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)
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To: RightField

“judicial appointments”

Judicial nutcases can be mainly neutralized by say allowing the plaintiff to exclude up to 1/10 the judges of a judicial district and the defendant up to 4/10ths.

As for crazy jury awards, each prospective juror might be required to compute damages on paper for say four hypothetical cases, two prepared by the plaintiff and then two prepared by the defense. Then 2/10ths of the jurors could be excluded by each side.


16 posted on 12/09/2024 7:55:06 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: MtnClimber

Imagine if attempted assassins were pardoned.

Maybe it couldn’t work if the attempts were done in a state rather than Washington D.C. or abroad.

Imagine if a president were to announce that someone ought to be killed and promised to pardon anyone who did it. Or imagine him sending assassins, and pardoning them.

Congressmen, senators, judges, journalists, leaders of intelligence agencies and various departments could simply be disposed of.

Thinking about impeaching the president? Well, you better do it before the assassination squad arrives.

Imagine that this could be Biden or Trump. We’re not there yet, but the president’s office holds enormous power. It can be used for good or evil.

But those on the left better realize their lawlessness can come back to haunt them. Everywhere Communists take over, even those who helped them gain power are no longer safe. Often they are the first to be killed.


17 posted on 12/09/2024 7:56:33 AM PST by unlearner (Still not tired of winning.)
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To: DeplorablePaul

“Joe’s handlers are busy preparing the pardon list that will be released on Jan 19th.”

President Trump is a far more merciful person than Joe Biden, and would be willing to prove it in writing.


18 posted on 12/09/2024 8:03:30 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: unlearner

WIKI

In the English and British tradition, the royal prerogative of mercy is one of the historic royal prerogatives of the British monarch, by which they can grant pardons (informally known as a royal pardon) to convicted persons. The royal prerogative of mercy was originally used to permit the monarch to withdraw, or provide alternatives to, death sentences; the alternative of penal transportation to “partes abroade” was used since at least 1617. It is now used to change any sentence or penalty. A royal pardon does not overturn a conviction.

In modern times, by constitutional convention, the prerogative is exercised by the Sovereign on ministerial advice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_of_mercy


19 posted on 12/09/2024 8:11:37 AM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: MtnClimber
If Biden goes through with this, I propose we respond with hardball of our own:

1. Trump declares the blanket-pardoned Deep Staters to be, literally, "Outlaws" - that is, outside the protection of the law. Of course this is no longer a formal legal thing, but the idea is that anyone can act against them without legal consequence (see below).

2. Anyone who then acts against the Outlaws can then be pardoned by Trump, rendering any attempt to prosecute them toothless.

Many variations on this can be considered with more nuanced "outlaw" statuses.

20 posted on 12/09/2024 9:26:35 AM PST by EnderWiggin1970
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