I, along with 2 in 10 Americans, disapprove of President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunger Biden. While I understand why the President, as a devoted father, did what he did. I think what he did was wrong and what was even worse was the deceptive way he did it after repeatedly indicating he wouldn’t pardon his son. As the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told USA Today, “He gave his word crossed his heart, and then alas, he ended up doing it.” His action will further undermine Americans’ faith in the rule of law and the judgment of jurors who rendered a verdict.  The pardon was an overreach that will tarnish President Biden’s legacy. By putting his fatherly love above his country, President Biden abdicated his moral authority.  Presidents are always supposed to put their country first. It would have been far less destructive if President Biden had commuted Hunter’s sentence instead of unconditionally pardoning him.  He should have employed a more nuanced approach, which threaded the needle by granting Hunter clemency, but allowing his dully imposed convictions to stand but limiting his sentence. Hunter Biden was found guilty of three serious felony charges related to lying about his drug use on a form required to obtain a handgun and nine charges in a federal tax case against him (evading $1.4 million in taxes 2016-19). He was awaiting sentencing later this month on the two federal cases. He faced a maximum of 42 years in prison for these charges (17 for a tax case and 25 for a drug case). It was widely agreed that he was unlikely to receive a sentence anywhere near that length. As a first-time, nonviolent offender, he was likely to serve a couple of years at most and might have avoided prison altogether. President Biden said repeatedly after his son’s conviction that he would not issue a presidential pardon for his son Hunter In pardoning Hunter, after repeatedly ruling out such a move, President Biden claimed the charges were politically motivated. In the statement announcing his U-turn, he acknowledged that he had pledged to “not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making”.  However, he said Hunter had been “singled out” and subjected to a “miscarriage of justice” and the charges were politically motivated. President Trump is one of many who have criticized Biden for reversing his position, calling it an “abuse” of power.  In what is a first for me, I agree with President Trump and Judge Scari, a Trump appointee, who oversaw the Hunter tax case.  Scari indicated that the “president’s own attorney general and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges.” This is correct. Both cases were prosecuted by David Weiss, whom Trump appointed as U.S. Attorney for Delaware and who was granted special counsel status by Attorney General Merrick Garland in August 2023. Hunter Biden was fairly prosecuted and got a fair trial.  It was wrong for President Biden to attack his own Justice Department and to use his absolute pardon power to overrule the justice system. The “full and unconditional” pardon that President Biden granted to his son was unusually sweeping. It covers any potential federal crimes Hunter may have committed during a period of more than 10 years from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024.  That spans a period beyond Hunter Biden’s tax and gun offenses and dates back to the period of his controversial stint as a high-priced board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings (earning more than $2 million), while his father, then US vice-president, had a key role in US policy towards Ukraine. The dates covered by the pardon include the period of Hunter’s foreign business dealings with Russia, China and Ukraine that prompted Republican congressional investigations. It should be pointed out that these investigations did not produce any evidence of Joe Biden’s influence peddling or receiving any payments for his son’s business deals, or led to any additional criminal charges against Hunter. However, you have to be a complete idiot to believe that Hunter Biden, with no background in the energy industry, would have been appointed to Burisma’s board or been hired as a consultant by various other foreign businesses, had he not been the son of the President. With this in mind, I think it was inappropriate for the then Vice President to have had any interactions with Hunter’s foreign business associates (even a brief hello on speakerphone which apparently occurred). Vice President Biden should have made it explicitly clear to Hunter than any kind of interaction was totally off-limits.  That was apparently not done and that was a mistake. Clear boundaries should have been established to make it harder for Hunter to exploit his family name as he, no doubt, did. In announcing the pardon of his son, President Biden accused his Republican opponents of targeting him and his son and expressed concern that this would continue after President Trump took office. President Biden was, no doubt, concerned that Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, Khash Patel, who has previously indicated that Hunter Biden “is guilty of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act,” which requires certain types of foreign agents to disclose their relationship with a foreign actor through registration with the U.S. government, would be going after Hunter with vengeance.  Again, I understand the motivation, but it undercuts Democrats moral authority especially as it pertains to the Justice Department. Joe Biden’s pardon of his son is one more nail in the coffin of the notion that in America “no one” is above the law. It is worth mentioning that President Biden’s unconditional pardon of Hunter does not prevent the Trump Justice Department from pursuing a further investigation of Hunter Biden. However, based on the broad nature of Hunter’s Presidential pardon, the court would in all likelihood dismiss the charges. Given Hunter’s apparent comeback from his addiction and troubled past, I hope the Trump administration doesn’t pursue that course of action, but I would not be surprising if it did. Irwin Stoolmacher is president of the Stoolmacher Consulting Group, a fundraising and strategic planning firm that works with nonprofit agencies that serve the truly needy among us.