Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) suggested in 2018 that pardoning a president’s child could amount to an effort to obstruct justice. Schiff’s past remarks have resurfaced in light of President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, for tax and gun violations. The pardon also extends to any potential crimes that the Justice Department has not charged him with.
Many legal experts believe Hunter may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) at minimum, while Republicans allege that Joe Biden personally benefited from his son’s business dealings. “The Congress ought to know whether the President is using the pardon power to obstruct justice,” Schiff said at the time. “The American people have a right to know.” Schiff made his statement on CNN in connection with proposed legislation aimed at addressing potential pardons by then-President Donald Trump for members of his family.
“What exactly would it do?” CNN’s then-host Don Lemon asked. Schiff responded: “What it would do is say that in the event the president pardons anyone in an investigation in which the President is a witness, a subject or the target, those investigative files will all be turned over to the Congress. The Congress ought to know whether the President is using the pardon power to obstruct justice. The American people have a right to know. I think it is clearly constitutional. It doesn’t prohibit him from granting a pardon, even a pardon he shouldn’t grant, but it does say that we will be able to at least find out whether the President is using this power to shield himself from liability.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, during a trip to Angola, that “no reasonable person” could conclude anything other than that Hunter deserved a pardon. President Biden granted his son a pardon on Sunday evening for offenses dating back to 2014, when both he as vice president and his son as a ‘businessman’ began endeavors in Ukraine. His decision marked a sharp reversal from years of assurances by Jean-Pierre and Biden himself, including as recently as last month, that a pardon would not be considered.
Breitbart News reported that Jean-Pierre changed her tune on Monday, claiming that Hunter Biden would not have been prosecuted if he had not been a person “who has the last name of the president,” and also claimed that he had been “singled out politically.” She added: “The president wrestled with this decision, he made the decision this weekend, and he decided to move forward with pardoning his son.”
Journalists, visibly skeptical, pressed Jean-Pierre with questions about whether she was suggesting that the Department of Justice had been politicized, and if so, whether President Biden bore responsibility due to his appointees. They also inquired about the extent of politicized cases within the department. Jean-Pierre declined to answer these questions directly but stated that President Biden had no intention of demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland’s resignation over allegations of targeting his son to appease Republicans, Breitbart added.
She stated that Biden disagreed with President-elect Donald Trump regarding the claim that the justice system has been weaponized. “He believes in the Department of Justice,” she said, though “politics infected the process.” She noted that the plea deal negotiated by Hunter Biden’s attorneys had collapsed, but that only happened after the federal judge overseeing the case discovered “an immunity clause that would have protected him from future prosecutions. The unprecedented clause had been concealed from the court,” Breitbart added.
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