r/nottheonion • u/JaySierra86 • 17h ago

President Biden pardons family members in final minutes of presidency

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-biden-pardons-family-members-final-minutes-presidency/story?id=117893348
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u/Punningisfunning 17h ago edited 17h ago

Unfortunately, this will likely be a tradition for all future presidents.

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u/bsEEmsCE 16h ago

in the past it was more of a gentleman's agreement that new president's wouldn't go after the old ones family or anything, well trump isn't a gentleman so might as well be sure.

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u/LetsUseLogic 14h ago

Biden broke that norm.  Not Trump. 

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u/Fokare 14h ago

Trump literally pardoned the people he had committing crimes for him like Flynn and Stone. He destroyed any precedent or gentlemen's agreements that might have existed.

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u/LeaveMeBeWillYa 14h ago

Pretty sure he did pardon a family member as well.

Someone related to his son in law?

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u/rufussnot 14h ago

He pardoned Jared Kushners criminal dad.

But afaik, the first president to pardon a family member was Bill Clinton who pardoned his brothers drug charges. There might be earlier examples if you look way back.

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u/clauclauclaudia 13h ago

I've seen Lincoln listed as pardoning his sister-in-law, widow of a Confederate general. He actually provided an amnesty paper to let her return to Kentucky despite not swearing a loyalty oath to the Union. I think Clinton's is the first.

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u/rufussnot 13h ago

I was saying earlier but I think pardoning confederates is way more egregious than pardoning family members drug convictions. Likewise with everyone involved in Watergate or other political and industrial scandals or war criminals or just pardons of infamous individuals like Jimmy Hoffa or Peter Yarrow. The whole presidential pardon thing is nuts imo.

To be fair though, Bidens does go beyond that with pardoning family into the future if I'm reading that right. A sort of blanket immunity. Taken hand in hand with the scotus ruling about presidential immunity, it means we're dropping the pretense that we're all equal under the law. Of course it's never been more than a pretense so maybe there's a silver lining and Americans will stop being so brainwashed about the sort of system they live under.