Pressure is mounting on President Joe Biden to expand his pardoning authority beyond his son to include his former rival, as a longtime Democrat is urging the president to pardon President-elect Donald Trump for federal charges during Biden’s remaining months in office.
Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV), who left the Democratic Party earlier this year, is set to retire after decades of public service, choosing not to seek reelection in the strongly Republican state of West Virginia. In a Monday interview, Manchin called on Biden to issue a pardon for Trump following the pardon of Hunter Biden, arguing that such a gesture would promote unity as Biden prepares to hand over the presidency to his successor.
“What I would have done differently, and my recommendation as a counsel would’ve been, ‘Why don’t you go ahead and pardon Donald Trump, for all his charges?’” Manchin said on CNN. He suggested he wouldn’t have done things differently from Biden, adding he doesn’t “know of a father that [wouldn’t have] done the same thing,” according to The Hill.
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The White House, which did not respond to Senator Manchin’s proposal, is now in crisis mode two days after President Biden issued a “complete and unconditional” pardon to Hunter Biden for actions over the past 11 years. This pardon absolves Hunter of two federal cases and prevents him from being prosecuted for any crimes committed during that period. Meanwhile, special counsel David Weiss was actively prosecuting Hunter for defrauding the IRS by concealing millions in income. Hunter was scheduled to be sentenced later this month after a jury convicted him of lying about his drug use when applying for a handgun.
In announcing the pardon, President Biden declared, “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. There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden added in his statement. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
Trump also reacted to the pardon with a harsh denouncement on Truth Social, stating that liberals should not hesitate about his commitment to pardoning January 6 prisoners in light of Hunter Biden’s pardon. “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” he wrote Monday.