Forgive and forget

NEW DELHI: Last week, outgoing US President Joe Biden decided to issue a full and unconditional pardon to his son Hunter Biden on account of his convictions on federal gun and tax violations, and for any potential federal offence committed over an 11-year period. Hunter Biden's tax evasion case involves non-payment of $1.4 mn in income tax from 2016-19, and showing $5 mn spent on drugs, escorts, luxury stays and cars as business expenses. The tax charges carried up to 17 years, while the gun charges carried 25 years jail term. The pardon implies that Hunter won't see the inside of a prison or have a criminal record. Biden Sr justified the pardon saying that Hunter was being singled out only because he was the President's son and that he was being prosecuted for political reasons. The leader also feared that president-elect Donald Trump's allies would seek to prosecute Hunter for other offences following Trump's swearing in.

Biden is hardly the first president to deploy his pardon powers to benefit those close to him. The US Supreme Court has found the presidential pardon authority to be very broad. Presidents have forgiven drug offences, fraud convictions and Vietnam-era draft dodgers. But a president can only grant pardons for federal offenses, not state ones. But they do tend to exercise that power a lot. For instance, in his final weeks in office, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He also pardoned multiple allies convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in office, which includes 143 pardons. His predecessor Barack Obama granted clemency 1,927 times in his eight years, which includes 212 pardons. Prior to that, Bill Clinton issued 396 pardons, including that of his half-brother Roger Clinton in 2001, after he had completed a prison term for drug charges. Clinton also pardoned his former business partner Susan McDougal, who had been sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the Whitewater real estate deal. Interestingly, Gerald Ford granted a ‘full, free, and absolute pardon’ in 1974 to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, over the Watergate scandal. Nixon (1969-74) issued a staggering 863 pardons, Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61) issued 1,110; Harry Truman (1945-53) issued 1,913; and Franklin Roosevelt (1933-45) issued 2,819 pardons.

Biden's about-turn has drawn criticism from many Democrats, who are working to calibrate their approach to Trump as he prepares to take over the Oval Office in seven weeks. They fear the pardon will erode their ability to push back on the incoming president's legal moves. And it threatens to cloud Biden's legacy as he prepares to leave office on January 20. Legacy might wait, for Biden Sr is now mulling the prospect of issuing sweeping preemptive pardons for officials and allies who the White House fears could be unjustly targeted by Trump's administration.

Recipients could include infectious-disease specialist Dr Anthony Fauci, who was instrumental in combating the pandemic and who earned the ire of conservatives on mask mandates and vaccines. The novel and risky use of the president's extraordinary constitutional power in this fashion will mark a significant expansion of how they are deployed. In all possibility, it could lay the groundwork for even more drastic usage by Trump, who could use the promise of a blanket pardon to encourage his allies to take actions they might otherwise resist for fear of running afoul of the law.