A presidential pardon notwithstanding, the Biden family may yet face accountability from Congress and the executive branch, government watchdog groups say.
In fact, President Joe Biden’s blanket pardon of son Hunter Biden could provide more leverage for Congress to investigate other Biden family members, said Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, a conservative legal group.
“President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter means that Hunter can no longer invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination,” Davis, Republicans’ former chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Daily Signal in a telephone interview Monday.
Hunter Biden was convicted earlier this year on gun and tax charges, for which he faced a maximum of 17 and 25 years in prison, respectively.
The president’s pardon Sunday night covered any crimes his son “has committed or may have committed or taken part in from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.”
“The House Republicans should subpoena Hunter Biden now. This is a much bigger issue than hookers and blow,” Davis added, using slang for the drug cocaine. “This is about the president of the United States being compromised, with $23 million going to what seems like every member of the Biden family”
An impeachment inquiry conducted by three House committees—Oversight and Accountability; Ways and Means; and Judiciary—found bank records demonstrating a labyrinth of shell corporations owned by Biden family members doing business in China, Ukraine, Russia, and other foreign nations that in some cases seemingly were tied to Joe Biden’s actions in the Senate and as vice president.
The House committees concluded in a final report in August that the president engaged in a “conspiracy to monetize” his public office as vice president and enrich his family. The House didn’t move to impeach, as Biden had announced the previous month that he was dropping his reelection bid and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Specifically, the president’s brother James Biden conducted business deals that prompted questions. In June, the three House committees made criminal referrals to the Justice Department to investigate Hunter Biden and James Biden for alleged perjury before Congress. Although the president’s pardon could cover any testimony the younger Biden already had given, it would not likely cover James Biden.
Hunter Biden’s testimony could potentially lead to more information about the Biden family’s involvement in influence peddling. The president’s son could be held in contempt if he refuses to answer questions from Congress and charged with perjury if he doesn’t testify truthfully.
Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers told House investigators that the younger Biden had received special treatment by the Justice Department and IRS that went easier on him.
The incoming second Trump administration should consider its own investigation of both the “Biden racketeering operation” and federal bureaucracies that botched a probe of influence peddling, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a phone interview.
“The president could appoint a special prosecutor possibly outside the Justice Department and the FBI,” Fitton told The Daily Signal, referring to Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20. “It’s difficult for the Justice Department to investigate itself. This could include an investigation of what the FBI did or didn’t do. The prosecutor could report to the president.”
Fitton noted that a special prosecutor potentially could refer matters to federal and even state prosecutors for charges.
Fitton also questioned the wide-reaching pardon of his son by the president.
“The pardon is so blanket, it raises constitutional questions. If it’s a pardon of everything, it’s a pardon of nothing,” Fitton said. “It’s clear the pardon applies to the two charges he was convicted for. But it’s not clear that all charges known and unknown can be pardoned.”
Though unusual, the Constitution gives presidents broad pardoning power, Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, wrote for The Daily Signal in a commentary that criticizes the pardon but maintains it is lawful.
“Article II of the Constitution spells out the powers vested in the president, and it vests in the president a clemency power. At common law, the Crown could pardon anyone for any crime because the king or queen was the source of all English law and therefore could forgive anyone,” Larkin wrote. “The Framers carried that power forward into our Constitution. The Article II Pardon Clause provides that ‘[t]he President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.’ The president’s clemency power is perhaps the sole surviving royal authority that our legal system authorizes our president to exercise.”
Hunter Biden could face the choice of either telling the truth in hearings before Congress or contesting contempt of Congress charges if he did not. The Biden administration’s Justice Department prosecuted two Trump allies and administration aides, Steve Bannon and Peter Navaro, for contempt of Congress.
“While this abusive pardon from his father may prevent federal criminal prosecution, it does not absolve Hunter and his father of their misdeeds,” Thomas Jones, founder and president of the American Accountability Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a text message.
“Now that Hunter is no longer in legal jeopardy, Fifth Amendment protections are no longer applicable and he needs to come completely clean about his father’s involvement in shady deals in China and the Ukraine,” said Jones, a former Capitol Hill staffer who oversaw investigations. “If he doesn’t, he should be held in contempt of Congress and tossed in one of the cells emptied when President Trump pardons J6 [Jan. 6] protesters.”
The two IRS whistleblowers provided extensive information to the House Ways and Means Committee. After the president pardoned his son, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., recalled that Hunter Biden had predicted the charges would go away if his father became president.
“Well, today we see exactly what that looks like when one business partner in Joe Biden takes care of another in Hunter Biden to protect the family business,” Smith said in a public statement. “Today’s pardon is just the latest in a string of efforts by the Biden administration to cover up and dismiss the years of criminal activity committed by the Biden family of which evidence has shown President Biden was not only aware but clearly complicit.”
