What Were HUNTER's CRIMES 🤔

...Plus the Surprising History of Presidential Pardons

Friends,

You’ve probably heard that Biden has pardoned his son.

In my video above, I break it all down: what Hunter did, what Biden did, and what presidential pardons are all about. Ever wondered just how far-reaching a president’s pardon powers are? Can they pardon anyone, at any time, for anything? I also dig into how Biden’s pardon count stacks up against Trump’s first term and other presidents.

Let me know—just give me a ballpark guess—how many pardons do you think presidents typically issue in any given term? I found the numbers absolutely flabbergasting.

We’ll get into those numbers, along with a crash course on presidential pardon power—where it comes from, how it’s meant to work, and whether it’s really just a glorified Get Out of Jail Free card.

So, why does this pardon power even exist in the first place?

The U.S. Constitution gives the president the authority to pardon federal crimes (key word: federal), but it doesn’t extend to state-level offenses.

Every state constitution authorizes the Governor or a Board of Pardons to grant clemency—In some states, governors have full authority to grant clemency independently, while others require recommendations or approval from a clemency board or advisory group. In a few states, clemency decisions are handled entirely by these boards, without any input from the governor. Overall, each state has its own rules for granting clemency.

This pardoning power can include reducing sentences, waiving fines, or even outright forgiveness. Fun fact: A pardon can be declined. People can reject it if they choose.

While there’s an official process involving the Office of the Pardon Attorney, the president can skip over that anyway. You know, back in the day, I would assume this power was probably intended for big-deal offenses like treason or, I don’t know, post-Revolutionary War shenanigans. Safe to say, the framers weren’t envisioning it being used to clean up laptop scandals or money laundering.

Hunter Biden was staring down the barrel of up to 25 years for gun charges and another 17 for tax evasion. Now, let’s be real—he wasn’t going to serve anywhere close to that. But what makes this pardon jaw-dropping is this pardon isn’t just a one-off "get out of jail free" card—it’s a ten-year blanket cover, sweeping up any potential federal crimes Hunter might have committed from 2014 all the way to December 2024. Yep, that neatly includes his stint on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, while Daddy Biden was VP and deeply involved in U.S. policy on Ukraine. Nepotism, anyone?

Check out this BBC article, What Did Hunter Biden Do, and What Is a Presidential Pardon? It’s packed with details—and includes this chart showing the pardon counts for presidents since 1945:

This move raises a truckload of questions about accountability and the ethics of pardoning family members. If this doesn’t scream “rules for thee but not for me,” I don’t know what does.

The presidential pardon has been controversial for centuries. Remember Ford pardoning Nixon? Or Clinton’s eleventh-hour pardons for his donors? It’s a tradition of questionable optics, to say the least. But Biden may have just raised the bar—or lowered it, depending on how you look at it.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this whole thing makes me rethink the purpose of pardons altogether.