I'm not the world's biggest fan of "both sides" criticism—i.e., that reporters constantly bend over backward to show that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans—but holy shit:
Justice Dept.’s Apolitical Tradition Is Challenged by 2 Presidents
The special counsel named to lead the inquiry into Hunter Biden, the president’s son, has just seen the two convictions he secured wiped away by a presidential pardon.
Mr. Trump, whose election victory last month has done nothing to blunt his desire for retribution against those who pursued or opposed him, is trying to install a new F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, dedicated to turning the nation’s premier law enforcement agency upside down.
....Over a few days, the American justice system was buffeted by raw exercises of power from the current Democratic president and the incoming Republican president. Now, current and former officials as well as legal experts say they are worried about whether the post-Watergate tradition that criminal investigations remain largely outside the reach of political leaders can survive an era in which the system is engulfed by partisanship.
You've got to be kidding. Dodgy pardons, whatever their crassness, have been part of politics forever and do nothing to subvert the Justice Department. Trump, by contrast, has literally promised to take over both DOJ and the FBI and bend them to his personal will in order to take revenge on his enemies. There is nothing even remotely comparable about these two things.
And that's not even counting the fact that Trump pardoned a dozen Republican cronies during his first term and nobody thought it was the end of the world.
C'mon, man.
Just staying with family members, Carter pardoned Billy, George Bush Sr pardoned his son Neil, and they were both guilty of actual things not way over charged for things for political reasons.
And that’s not even getting into Trump appointing hacks to AG and FBI who will bring whatever corrupt charges he asks them to.
And Trump pardoned his daughter's father in law.
Why do people bother with such transparent easily checked lies?!?!
Neither Billy Carter nor Neil Bush were ever charged with crimes or pardoned. Check Wikipedia if you do not believe me.
Bill Clinton did pardon his brother though.
Neil Bush would have been charged eventually but for his Father's pardon though. White collar crimes take awhile to get charged.
Neil Bush would have been charged eventually but for his Father's pardon though
No, Neil Bush was not pardoned. Esquire has already pulled the story.
I always figured Hunter would get pardoned after the election cycle. Joe didn't try to deny his son did anything wrong, attack the system, obstruct justice, fire prosecutors/his AG or anything else to hide the facts of the case though. Hunter also did not do these things.
Biden is not just as guilty as Trump. The old grey lady freely admits she holds democrats to a higher standard than republicans. Sad truth is that the NYT regards chastising Democrats as its raison d’etre. Chastising Republicans? That’s a job for the NY Post or some other Murdoch outlet.
Shortly before the election NYT columnist’s blithely said about in one of her weekly chats with Bret Stephens “of course we hold her to a higher standard”. Almost no one noticed. All Dubya had to do to win media approval was give reporters stupid demeaning nicknames and seem to be “more fun to have a beer with.”
Republicans are the people who claimed Chappaquiddick was the greatest scandal in world history, so it's important to remember that every single thing they say is meaningless and only comes to fuck you, every single time in every single topic.
Whatever a Republican says about anything 'fuck you' is the statement we should always respond to.
Clinton and Monica was met with even more outrage than Chappaquidick was by three successive House Speakers Newt and Bob Livingston, both cheaters and the pedophile Denny Hastert — as well as by all of the mainstream “liberal” media most of whom continued to worship the far more promiscuous and reckless JFK.
Bill Clinton's blow job was a pratfall they tried to turn into Auschwitz, Chappaquiddick was a sad tragedy, and both are the kind of thing that happens to ordinary people, probably thousands of times a day.
Like Hunter Biden's drug problem.
Republicans are nothing, with evil and wrong added in. You'd think there would be opposition to this.
Dodgy pardons, whatever their crassness, have been part of politics forever...
Is the Hunter pardon "dodgy"? IANAL so I'm open to persuasion, but Donald Trump has quite openly vowed to misuse the immense powers of his office to persecute his political rivals. Under the circumstances, my layman's take is that this is a proper use of the pardon power.
I understand the nepotistic optics are unnerving—and may well hurt Democrats (though I doubt it: did Bill Clinton's pardon of his brother have any effect on the 2004 election?)—but if the pardon is fine on the merits, what is alternative? Answer: there is none. Article 2 squarely gives only the President the pardon power. If the pardon is just and legitimate, Joe's only alternative to not employing it is entrusting his son's future to the tender mercies of the lunatic mafioso who moves into the White House next month.
"lunatic mafioso"
Well said.
The Dems’ pardons got so much more outrage from the media that I had totally forgotten the supposed paragon of virtue Poppy Bush pardoned his son Neil who was involved with the collapse of the Silverado Savings and Loan. Neil later traded on his dad’s and brother’s presidencies by selling his reading program and high tech products ( neither of which he was qualified to do) in Asian countries where he was rewarded not just with generous contracts but with prostitutes. When Neil was forced to admit to that under oath in his divorce deposition that story got far less media coverage than did Roger Clinton’s and Billy Carter’s shenanigans. The media protects rich patrician families but gleefully gives people from places like small town Arkansas or Georgie the white trash rubes treatment,
Don't forget Poppy Bush's pardon of all of the Iran Contra principals.
The Wikipedia page for Neil Bush says nothing about a pardon.
Not that I am that fond of the Bushes, but it is better to use actual facts against them. There is enough of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Bush
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-george-h-w-bush-1989-1993
Yeah, the Iran-Contra pardons were plenty bad enough.
Obviously the election changed everything.
Biden should have been much more clear about the reason ("entrusting his son's future to the tender mercies of the lunatic mafioso who moves into the White House next month") in his statement about the pardon.
Well, he was clear about the Congressional kangaroo court attempt at pillorying himself through pillorying his son, but not with specifics, or how Trump was very clear about retribution of his imagined enemies and is following up with like minded appointees to head Justice, the FBI, and the rest, and how this changed his mind.
News flash to the NYT: "Yes, the American justice system is discredited, and no, it had nothing to do with anything the Democrats did."
Joe Biden is dealing with the reality of the situation, and maybe some day the NYT will also be able to.
The disrepute of the American justice system has a fair bit to do with what the Democratic appointed attorney-general didn't do.
Wish this stupid comment system had likes because I would have used it here.
But, I'll add to your comment that the Obama Administration contributed to the disrepute of the DoJ through inaction by not prosecuting anyone not named Bernie in the aftermath of the most widespread financial fraud in the history of the world and not prosecuting anyone from the Bush Administration.
In fact, if memory servers, the Obama made it very clear that his DoJ wasn't even going to perform investigations into these matters.
That we wound up with the biggest crook to be the POTUS in the history of the country being elected again should not be surprising.
For me, that will be the very bad legacies for those 2.
"contributed to the disrepute of the DoJ through inaction by not prosecuting anyone not named Bernie in the aftermath of the most widespread financial fraud in the history of the world"
The problem is that nearly all of the stuff that led to the 2008 meltdown was not illegal. We needed new laws, not feelgood prosecutions that would have resulted in acquittal after acquittal. And I view it as a failure that so many on the left that should have been focused on securing the former wasted effort bemoaning the lack of the second.
And going on to blame Obama for Republicans electing Trump is incredibly wrongheaded (and very similar to the nytimes operating assumption that only Democrats have agency).
Holder also completely failed to prosecute torturers, despite the US having promised in the Convention Against Torture to do so, because "we want to look forward, not back". THAT is the worst part of the Obama legacy.
"... Democratic appointed attorney-general didn't do."
That like blaming the cat after a bull went through a china shop.
The democrats didn't heap lies upon lies, and didn't go after somebody for solely for political reasons. In the first term of Trump, the DOJ also didn't that much of it, but Trump clearly intend to do it on large scale in this term.
A fair justice system would prosecute donnie Jr., for the same things Hunter got prosecuted for (doing drugs while owning guns).
Garland spent TWO YEARS completely failing to pursue criminal charges against Trump even though much of his law breaking was a matter of public record.
Well I dunno, Kevin. I mean about the only thing Americans remember about Abraham Lincoln these days is that he pardoned his sister-in-law, an out-and-out Confederate. It made the entire Union army wonder why they'd bothered fighting the Civil War.
👍👍😄
👍
Future NYT article:
Press Freedoms Challenged by Both Parties
In the 2024 election season, the Harris campaign stood out for its refusal to grant interviews to major news organizations, thus limiting the ability of voters to make an informed choice. Today current President Donald Trump had a few dozen prominent political reporters lined up against a wall and shot. In this era of political partisanship and disdain for reporting by both Republicans and Democrats, many are calling into question the role of the press and the strength of democratic norms.
Sorry, can't laugh at that, it seems too real.
Presidential immunity is not a new concept. If you're a crooked Republican, like Nixon or the Iran-Contra perpetrators, you will be pardoned if you're succeeded by another Republican.
Roughly 50 years of toeing the line, avoiding corruption (at least gross and illegal corruption) and this is what they decide to berate him for?
https://youtu.be/L7yWr9zCtmc
He did plagiarize from a Neil Kinnock speech.
I saw someone post this today on social media: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel)
The N.Y. Times has made been vocal in making it known that its role is not to take sides in the country's politics. The result has been the "both sides" coverage it's been dishing out for years now. No Republican misdeed ever makes print without an account of a Democratic misdeed alongside, no matter how absurd the correlation. (Critiques of Democrats don't require the same treatment because Democrats should be held to a higher standard. Which doesn't make sense. But that's the well-established practice.)
The Times claims not to take sides, and that's bad enough. But it's a bogus claim, because the Times clearly does take a side. The wrong side, in fact.
We need a reckoning for legacy media like the Times. The authoritarians could not have succeeded without media complicity. The Times et al. need to change course, or die.
How about we pass a constitutional amendment to remove the president's power to pardon crimes or commute sentences? It is a ridiculous anachronism from feudal times to begin with and coupled with the Roberts court decision that the President is indeed above the law is just ripe for abuse.
It's a good idea to retain the pardon power, but constraining it in the way many states have done, with boards of pardons and such, is also a good idea. Mind you, the presidency has never been a good idea. Giving one person that much power is insanely dangerous.
How about we pass a constitutional amendment to remove the president's power to pardon crimes or commute sentences?
Agreed. Or at least an amendment regulating it somehow. I'd suggest something like: POTUS can issue a pardon; it takes effect in 90 days; Congress can take an affirmative vote to block it within that time; if not, the pardon takes effect.
[Insert reminder here that 'Merica can't pass amendments for anything given the current political polarity.]
In general that's true, provided there's less than overwhelming bipartisan agreement on something, which these days is super rare.
I would say that maybe this is one area where it's not inconceivable we could actually see bipartisan action. I think there's pretty wide agreement on both sides of the aisle that the pardon power—vested so absolutely in the executive branch—is a rather questionable artifact of the US presidency's historical ties to the British monarchy. Obviously, in the event (sure, not likely) we were to see action on this front, language could be included that would delay the effect of the change until after the start of the following presidential term (after ratification).
Everyone keeps saying this but when was the last time there was a real push to amend the constitution? Probably ERA in the 70s and it came very close to passing. I mean of course you won't pass an amendment if you don't try.
FWIW this is far from the one I would start with.
The ERA was passed by enough states that it should be considered to be ratified. There is a legitimate argument made by legal scholars that the congressional bill that set a time limit on ratification was unconstitutional as it was added separately after the fact a few years after the original ERA bill was approved by Congress.
As such a number of folks have appealed to the National Archives to get them to publish the amendment, the last official step to make the amendment a part of the official US Constitution.
This is no joke. The media has completely assumed the position.
First, let me defend the NYT...this was an opinion piece...but the Times itself, editorially, front page, repeatedly Endorsed Kamala Harris for President. No other major newsprint paper did this.
Now, then as to the pardon...I must and will say that this earlier hearing where the Plea Deal fell apart was malpractice by the best criminal defense lawyers possible.
I will also note that Mr Hunter Biden is a prestige Yale graduate lawyer himself...he needed to lean on his lawyers, lean on the judge, (yes this was entirely possible at this stage), done everything he/his lawyers could do to make this deal happen.
Mr Biden did not, I don't know if he was the problem or his lawyers...but it was a good deal, a great deal...it is true that it would not cover any possible Foreign Agent possible liability.;...But some bullets need to be bitten.
They f**ed up, f**ed themselves.
I went uh-oh when this thing fell apart...it was insane to allow this to happen, a mistake of monumental proportions! (but now, of course, the pardon is entirely still proper). Traveller
This is a completely inaccurate retelling of the events. While this is a popular revisionist retelling for those desperate to blame Biden for the actions of the Republican prosecutor and judge, it is completely wrong.
The government prosecutor changed the meaning of the plea deal during the hearing, not Biden. Previous communication between the Biden team and the govt indicated that Bidens understanding of the deal was correct prior to the hearing. Perhaps even more important is that Biden actually agreed to the changed terms.
He did exactly what you said he should do, take the deal. Even if the govt had misled them and changed it during the hearing. He took the deal.
Blaming Biden for not convincing the Republican judge to accept the deal is also a ridiculous revisionist take. The judge had agency, she had a goal. That she made an unusual decision under political pressure from her own party isn't Bidens fault in any way, shape or form.
Her ultimate objection was closing the door on the ability of future Presidents (Trump) to re-open the prosecutions case and recharge Biden for these alleged crimes. Biden wanted that, even the republican attorney from the DOJ wanted that. The judge did not accept it.
Note: It is not necessary to sign your comment with your screen name when it is already in the header - right on top.
- Department of Redundancy Department
Pardons are like Abortions, Environment, Taxes, Equality and cabinet nominations- they’re politics. Sadly there’s little outrage over the real tragedy of this election - the legitimization of election denial and insurrection. That’s not politics,- that’s constitution.
Sorry Ben but its looking like we choose not to keep it.
This doesn't sound like journalism to me:
"....Over a few days, the American justice system was buffeted by raw exercises of power from the current Democratic president and the incoming Republican president."
That's clearly more narrative than news. All that's required is to report the facts: Biden issued a pardon. The characterization of that act as a "raw" exercise "of power" is clearly more appropriate for an op-ed than a story that is supposedly "reporting" from Washington.
"Now, current and former officials as well as legal experts say they are worried about whether the post-Watergate tradition that criminal investigations remain largely outside the reach of political leaders can survive an era in which the system is engulfed by partisanship."
Again: this is a highly questionable presentation. One indication of a "passive" voice is when the action isn't attributed to anyone. So who exactly "engulfed" our era in "partisanship"? There's no "by" provided, as in "our era has been radicalized by ..." And that omission is a clear choice.
I would circle back and say that, Yes, this isn't news...it isn't meant to be, it isn't written to be news.
This is an opinion, a Wrong Opinion, but still only this Writer's opinion.
That is all. Best Wishes, Traveller
But Republicans whining and a judge cancelling the plea deal....yep, totally normal.
I would say the Judge did not cancel the deal, at least initially....he merely wanted to know and be sure that both sides understood what was covered in the Plea Agreement...this is perfectly normal and occurs in every such plea hearing.
Prosecution said covers tax and gun liability.
Defense jumped up and said, this also covers Foreign Agent and possible other matters.
Judge says: Now wait a minute, prosecution and defense do NOT agree...and in my courtroom, (and actually, all courtrooms), the parties must agree to the terms of the deal.
Much confusion, much conversation...Hunter and Defense lawyers SAY there is NO agreement....(this is what was insane!!!!!) Lunch was coming but correct decisions needed to be made...then, the deal should not have been allowed to slip away...there was a moment when they needed to be great...they missed it.
Traveller
That is not what happened.
Prosecutors changed their understanding of the plea deal. After the initial confusion in the court room and after the Biden team realized the prosecution had changed their interpretation from previous discussions/negotiations, Biden accepted the new interpretation.
Biden accepted the revised deal, he did not say there was 'no agreement'. He said the opposite.
The judge objected to the part of the agreement that made it impossible for future president's to unilaterally decide to re-prosecute Biden for the alleged crimes covered in the plea deal. Instead, she wanted to ensure that future DOJs (Trump's) had the ability to cancel the plea deal and re-try the case. Given the political nature of the case at hand and the fact that he was only tried the first time because Trump demanded it, this was a big deal. This was the republican judges decision, not Bidens.
Dear Jdubs
You make a compelling argument for political interference as well as for a hostile Judge.
However, I gift link you a lengthy recitation of the history of the Plea Deal. There are elements that support your view, but also many facts that support mine and that in fact at the ultimate end of the article it indicates that it was the breadth of differing opinion on the conferred immunity that caused the collapse of the agreement.
"Mr. Clark said the deal indemnified his client not merely for the tax and gun offenses uncovered during the inquiry, but for other possible offenses stemming from his lucrative consulting deals. Mr. Wise said it was far narrower — and suggested the government was still considering charges against Mr. Biden under laws regulating foreign lobbying.
"The two sides tried to salvage it, Judge Noreika was not convinced, and Mr. Biden silently left the courthouse under a hail of shouted questions."
* as a parenthetical thought, Deferred Prosecution Agreements are generally a great thing for many Defendants...though maybe not in this matter which, I believe, is you main thought as to why it was a bad deal, (I still disagree with you on this, however)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/19/us/politics/inside-hunter-biden-plea-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.e04.cve7.tx5rqop55hOI&smid=url-share
Picture the typical middle class American shouting in a shopping mall about too much ketchup on a burger. Are they letting little things slide? So why would you expect millions of them to cut your leadership slack every election?
IOKIYAR, Kevin, IOKIYAR. This is the first, foremost and last principle of Governance for the Greedy Old Party.
the press which has sane-washed Trump to victory will find themselves abandoned by both sides when the purge comes.
Not if they turn themselves into Fox News/Russia Today. Then only the side that doesn't matter will abandon them.
The incessant need to fill pages with print in order to sell a daily places pressure on people to make shit up.
Devlin, wasn't the abandonment of a plea deal following political uproar over it, sign of political motivation by a member of the Justice Department? If so, then the actions of Biden, while seemingly self-serving, is actually correcting what Garland failed to prevent.
Trying to find false equivalence isn't the duty of good journalists; it's the work of hacks.
The Hunter pardon was not just personal. It was very much in the public interest.
By pardoning Hunter, Biden prevented the sick four-year long spectacle of a Trump justice department pursuing a highly publicized vendetta against a former drug addict whose name happens to be Biden. Not only would it have wasted countless public resources, it would have been a gigantic distraction from the true crimes and outrages of Vladimir Putin Trump and his minions.
Biden did the right thing for all of us. Thanks, Joe.
IANAL and I agree with you. Thank you.
Yup. But again the pardon statement should have included all that stuff.
I am so glad I cancelled my subscription to the NYT. An object lesson in why nepo babies should never have editorial control over content.
"You've got to be kidding. Dodgy pardons, whatever their crassness, have been part of politics forever and do nothing to subvert the Justice Department. "
Let's wait till the end of Trump's second term to see if that is still true.
I do not want to get dragged into this debate.
My stance is that if you don't like this, then start voting for people who won't do it.
At all levels.
there's no rules in a knife fight. we are not just sure we know for a fact that Trump will of abuse his power and abuse the justice system to go after whomever he doesn't like on a given day. biden is standing up to a bully.
Republicans win election after election by pitching bs, telling lies and destroying norms. that's what works, that's what the electorate wants. that's democracy.