Biden Corruption Validates Trump Claims

By Troy Torres, Kandit News & Views

We all have our biases – I’m biased politically toward progressive policies and candidates – but we also should strive for objectivity in our judgments. Fair is fair. President Biden pardoning his son is corruption. For the Democrats and the country, it’s worse than that. The outgoing president has given the incoming one that much more power.

We can go over all the reasons to be upset about President Trump’s crimes and major allegations of misconduct against him. It still does nothing to remove the stain of corruption and the highest level of nepotism from the Democrats because of what Mr. Biden did. Since the pardon of Hunter Biden, I have read a slew of opinions in national outlets like the Washington Post and The New York Times. Most very deservedly bash the lame duck president’s decision, but appear to provide excuses for it. One such opinion by The Times columnist Gail Collins rationalizes that Trump 45’s pardon of daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law Charles Kushner should be seen as worse than the Hunter Biden pardon because at least Hunter wasn’t being appointed Ambassador to France.

I’ve seen this type of gaslighting and distraction from the issue at hand before. Oh, that’s right; it was when I was a child and refused to take accountability for my actions by telling my dad that my brother did something worse than me.

Biden Validated Trump’s Talking Point about the Weaponization of the Criminal Justice System

Over the past four years the Trumpiverse has lamented what it called the weaponization of the criminal justice system against the Democrats’ political opponents. Democrats trumped up the accusations to the lunacy of conspiracy theorists. Except now, the top Democrat in the country has pardoned his son, listing his official reason as the weaponization of the criminal justice system against the Biden family.

Nevermind for a minute that the Biden excuse for the pardon is that the prosecution should never have happened, and only happened because Hunter’s last name is Biden. Nevermind for a minute that for centuries the criminal justice system in this country has relied on the discretion of prosecutors balanced with the interest of judicial resources. Nevermind for a minute that it has never mattered successfully in a case against a criminal defendant that someone else who committed a similar crime didn’t get prosecuted. Nevermind for a minute that criminal defendants’ families beg the justice system for mercy using the same rationalization the president made: My child should have never been prosecuted to begin with. The difference between every other parent and Joe Biden, is that only one of them has the power to grant a full and unconditional pardon to his child.

What Joe Biden has done is validated the Trumpist claim that the criminal justice system is corrupt and being used systematically to attack political opponents. This validation now removes layers of doubt over what should have remained a bogus conspiracy theory that has hyperbolically relied on mistakes and rare instances of prosecutorial misconduct to paint the justice system unreliable. Kash Patel, the incoming FBI director, has been given this much more power – not by Trump, but by Biden’s stupid decision – to do exactly what the Democrats fear: go after Mr. Trump’s political opponents (and journalists) under the pretext of a criminal justice system overhaul.

In pardoning his son, President Biden essentially told the American public that prosecutorial discretion is flawed. Come January, Mr. Patel can pick up where Mr. Biden leaves off. Prosecution by politics and its inverse – favored politicians getting off the hook – now has an official precedent.

Pretext to Pardon January 6 Actors

A common expectation among those on the left since Mr. Trump won the election is that he will pardon some or all of the people involved in the January 6, 2023 insurrection. There would have been justified outrage.

Now, there can only be hypocrisy. If you in any way believe that what Mr. Biden did was right, I just can’t see how you can rationalize believing a pardon in the January 6 case is wrong. Sure, there are degrees of criminal conduct separating the crimes, but right and wrong are black and white in this comparison.

Mr. Biden has given Mr. Trump a pretext for pardoning whoever he believes should have never been prosecuted in the first place.

Waiting for the U.S. Attorney for Guam and the NMI to prosecute Ralph Torres for his federal crimes committed in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands? Oh, you mean the same Ralph Torres who became the first sitting governor in the nation to endorse outlier candidate Donald Trump in 2016? The one who has maintained a friendship with Trump 47? Move on to a new hobby. Mr. Biden’s pardon of his son all but guarantees people like Ralph Torres will never pay the piper.

 

Pardoning Trump Would At Least Have Had Precedent and Usefulness to National Unity

I am no fan of pardoning Mr. Trump for his crimes, but at least such a pardon by Mr. Biden would have been rooted in precedent and would have had a national purpose. When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, the reason he gave was simple and understandable: the nation had gone through so much already and should not have to bear the prosecution of a former president. In this case, Mr. Biden could have pardoned the incoming president with an even greater reason: the nation should not have to endure the prosecution of a sitting president.

It would be wrong to do. Just as it is wrong that he pardoned his son.