President Biden’s unpardonable pardon

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter.” Those words formed the opening line in a statement from President Joe Biden released by the White House Sunday night without advance notice. Invoking the constitutional “reprieve and pardon” power invested in the president, Biden went on to issue an unprecedented “full and unconditional pardon” for his son for “offenses against the United States which he has committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”

Once again, we are reminded that we can be shocked without being surprised. Joe Biden has repeatedly underlined his own vision of family commitment, which means unconditional support for any family member (except for Hunter’s young daughter who Biden never acknowledged until a flood of outrage forced him to do so). All this included a grandchild cohabitating in the White House and the extended soap opera that can simply be titled “Hunter.”

There is no question that the Constitution grants the pardon power to the president. The basis for this authority to pardon is rooted in the ancient tradition of pardon from a throne, generally rooted in monarchy. These pardons, such as referenced in Matthew 27:15–23, were a demonstration of undeserved mercy and graciousness. In other contexts, a presidential pardon, like a pardon from a king, is intended to correct a miscarriage of justice. Again, there is no question that a president of the United States has the power to grant a pardon or reprieve to any American.

And yet, that has never included a pardon extended to a son. President Bill Clinton did pardon his half-brother for cocaine possession, and other presidential pardons have been controversial, including some granted by President Donald Trump in his first term. The most controversial pardon in American history was granted to then–former President Richard Nixon by President Gerald Ford, who granted Nixon a “full, free, and absolute pardon” for any offenses that may have been committed during Nixon’s term in office. Nixon had not yet been indicted, much less convicted, but prosecution was virtually assured until Ford pardoned the disgraced former president.

Furthermore, President Biden lied again and again to the American people, stating repeatedly that he would not pardon his son. Sources within the White House turned this deceit even darker when stating that inside sources had known for some time that Biden did not intend to keep his word. This was not only an outright lie. It was a premeditated lie.

In my judgment, President Biden’s pardoning of his son was a moral wrong and a miscarriage of justice. Hunter Biden had been convicted of one crime and pled guilty to others. He was awaiting a sentencing hearing when his father, nearing the end of his term in office, pardoned him. This was a gratuitous and self-serving act that corrected no wrong done by the justice system. The Department of Justice that sought and achieved the prosecution of Hunter Biden was Joe Biden’s own Department of Justice.

Furthermore, the pardon of Hunter Biden forecloses any further legal action against him on the basis of his conduct in dealings with foreign interests—and this might well be the larger issue at stake. In any event, Biden’s pardon of his son is more likely to fuel congressional investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Surely the president’s capable lawyers reminded him that a person who accepts a presidential pardon forfeits any right to claim a Fifth Amendment release from self-incriminating testimony. President Biden’s pardon of his son might backfire. Big time.

But my concern is the larger truth that the problem with the pardon is that it underlines the fact that President Biden has failed his son by pardoning him again and again and again. There is full evidence that Joe Biden failed to confront his son with an adult lifetime of horrible wrongdoing, from sex and drugs to selling access to the U.S. government and his documented entanglements with foreign powers and interests. Hunter Biden is, in part, the product of Joe Biden. The story is filled with heartbreak, with Hunter and his late brother Beau as little boys injured in the auto accident that killed their mother. Later, Hunter was evidently crushed by the death of his brother (and then his strange romantic interest in Beau’s widow). Then there is the child born out of wedlock and not acknowledged.

The big problem with President Biden’s pardon of his son is not political, it is moral, and it is Biblical. It appears that Joe Biden’s pardon of his son is just the latest in a very long series.

Contrast the Biden parable with the parable of the Prodigal Son as found in Luke 15. Jesus told of the younger son who grievously sinned against his father, demanding his inheritance and taking it into a foreign land where he wasted it. But this younger son “came to himself” and realized what he had done. He returned to his father, intending to make his plea: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” That son did return and did confess his horrible sin, but the father received him as his son, forgave him, and restored him.

That father in the parable, pointing to our heavenly Father, extended mercy without forfeiting his own righteousness. That son, unlike Hunter Biden, has clearly come to know and hate his sin. Hunter Biden has given no public evidence of remorse. Joe Biden has given plenty of evidence as to why that is so. An indulgent father mistakes that indulgence for love. According to Scripture, it is not. A godly father loves his son and disciplines him.

It is beyond our power to correct President Biden’s miscarriage of justice. But it is not beyond our power to learn from it. Fathers, are you seeing this clearly? I direct that question to myself, by God’s grace now both a father and a grandfather. May God grant us sight and show us as fathers how to love our children both rightly and righteously.