President Joe Biden‘s controversial blanket pardon for his son Hunter Biden has given credence to the notion, however far-fetched it may sound, that he should also extend one to President-elect Donald Trump.
Amid the fallout from irritated Democrats who accuse the president of an “improper use of power,” some make the case that Biden pardoning Trump could even the scales and extend an olive branch to the incoming administration.
“The slate should be wiped clean. I think it’s by far the most balanced way to do it,” retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), who caucuses with Democrats, told the Washington Examiner. “Here in Congress, with the senators and congresspeople, it would balance things out and calm things down.”
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Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) made the case that Trump, like Hunter Biden, has faced a “weaponized” legal process in the case of falsifying business records for a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“Those cases were clearly weaponized against them for political gain. That’s undeniable,” he told Politico. “That was always inappropriate in my opinion. And a pardon in both are appropriate. And, for me, that collectively has damaged America’s trust in these institutions.”
Hunter Biden was criminally convicted in two federal felony cases and was awaiting sentencing this month.
In June, a jury in Delaware convicted Biden of three counts related to lying about drug use on a form when purchasing a handgun and carried a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. In a separate case in September, Biden pleaded guilty to nine charges related to failing to pay income taxes on millions of dollars worth of income, which carried a sentence of up to 17 years in prison.
But Biden issued a sweeping pardon on Sunday of his son’s convictions, in a reversal of his past comments claiming he would not intervene. The pardon covers the past decade going back to the beginning of 2014 for any crime Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed.”
The blowback on Biden was immediate and bipartisan. Democrats bemoaned Biden’s actions as a “setback” that would “erode” Americans’ trust while Republicans claimed it as another instance of a two-tiered justice system.
“As a father, I get it. But as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it’s a setback,” said Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH).
The prospects of Biden pardoning Trump may seem outlandish, given the Democrat’s longtime warning to voters that the Republican poses a “threat to democracy.” Such a move would fully undermine Biden’s rhetoric and elicit fury from fellow Democrats extending beyond their displeasure for pardoning Hunter.
In three additional criminal cases beyond the falsified documents for the hush-money payment, Trump was charged for mishandling classified documents after leaving office, and separate state and federal charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Several Democratic lawmakers had little appetite to entertain the notion of a pardon or flatly rejected it.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said, declining to elaborate.
“I haven’t even considered it,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT).
Similarly, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said he would not “speculate about any other pardon.”
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), expected to be the next chair of Senate Democrats’ campaign arm for the 2026 elections, declined to stake out a position and said the decision was entirely left to Biden.
“It would send a message that there’s been a trend towards political prosecutions,” Gillibrand told the Washington Examiner. “It’s certainly something he can consider, but it’s entirely his decision.”
Proponents of a pardon for Trump say it could ease some of the political tensions Biden is facing.
“I think Biden and his party would probably benefit more from it than they would lose,” said Jon Schaff, a professor of political science at Northern State University in South Dakota.
“It would be seen as a move of comity, of healing,” Schaff added. “There is a relatively broad consensus that our politics have been embittered and our politics lacks in any kind of magnanimity. And this would be the magnanimous move by Biden.”
Biden justified his flip-flop on pardoning Hunter by arguing his son was singled out by the Justice Department for political reasons and the victim of selective prosecution. “Enough is enough,” the president said in his Sunday statement that railed against “raw politics” infecting the justice system.
The tone was Trump-esque as the former president has insisted his charges were only because his political enemies want to destroy him. If Biden is serious about ending another “miscarriage of justice,” Trump’s argument has long been he’s the ultimate victim of unfounded prosecutions.
Some draw similarities to the situation Biden finds himself to that of former President Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over,” Ford would quip after taking an oath administered by Chief Justice Warren Burger.
According to recent statistics from the Office of the Pardon Attorney, Biden has received at least 11,863 requests for clemency and pardons. Of those requests, 25 pardons and 132 commutations have been granted.
Yet a blanket pardon for Trump would come with its own set of issues.
Cayce Myers, a professor at Virginia Tech’s School of Communication, pushed back against a Biden pardon of Trump as removing a personal issue from the political arena.
“It seriously calls into question the presidential pardon power and it calls into question, is it abused, and is it legitimate? And is it something that needs to be revisited?” Myers said. “From a perspective of Biden … I think it would be criticized heavily by Democrats. I think any Republican that’s calling for Biden to do that knows that he’s not. It’s just sort of a political talking point to underscore the bias in his own pardon of his son.”
Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt foreshadowed “outrage” from Democrats and a failed attempt at unity.
“Republicans would like it, but it’s not like they would change their minds about Biden overall,” Kalt said. “I don’t see the payoff for him, and I don’t think it would bring any sort of unity.”
“It’s too late. If he pardons Trump it’s going to be seen as nothing other than an attempt to reduce the backlash,” added Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
“If he wanted to do this, he should have had a large number of pardon warrants that he was going to sign, that he signed for all sorts of people, including Donald Trump and his son,” he added.
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Notably, presidential pardons only extend to federal crimes and would not benefit Trump’s felony conviction in New York in his hush money case or the charges against him in the Georgia election subversion case for efforts to overturn the state’s results. Only governors possess the power to fully cleanse Trump of his legal troubles at the state level.
Special counsel Jack Smith has moved to drop the two federal cases he was prosecuting against Trump, which are for allegedly mishandling classified documents and efforts at the federal level to overturn the 2020 election.
It remains unclear whether the Georgia case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will have to wait until 2029 when Trump is out of office. Kalt doubted legal cases would continue to plague Trump after a second term.
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“It is unlikely that Trump would face prosecution after leaving office anyway, at this point,” said Kalt, the law professor. “But if he did, and if a pardon was appropriate, it would be for the new president at that time to issue a pardon.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment.
