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Edward Snowden deserves a pardon more than Hunter Biden

December 12, 2024

If you had the power to save your son from 17 years of incarceration for crimes like lying on a gun purchase form and tax evasion, you would almost certainly wield that power.

But, if there were a national election taking place where this could be a talking point used against your party, maybe you would wait until after the election. To maintain the perception of moral and professional righteousness, you would probably insist that you would not be pardoning your son.

Joe Biden’s decision to pardon Hunter Biden is everything that everyone has said about it: it’s an abuse of power for personal gain, it undermines the perception of fairness in the justice system and it contributes to the normalization of presidents corrupting the purpose of the pardon.

It’s also a decision that we should find it difficult to blame him for. Biden had many competing duties to consider while deliberating on whether to pardon Hunter.

As president, he had a duty to use his power impartially.

As a father, he had no choice but to save his son. In fact, if he stood by his principles, he could be blamed for being excessively moralistic when he had the opportunity to spare his loved one. Arguably, he had a duty to protect his family and he weighed it similarly to how many of us would.

Republicans and Trump supporters may be tempted to point to Biden’s clemency as a demonstration of a lack of principles and a vindication of their criticism of Biden as a corrupt politician — he did lie, after all.

For years Biden has fashioned himself as a principled adherent to propriety as a contrast to Trump’s profile.

They are correct to point out that this appears to defeat at least some of Biden’s self-attributions of virtue but there is also some hypocrisy there. Trump would pardon the tentacled aliens that blew up the White House in Independence Day if it aligned with his personal interests.

In his statement, Biden justified his decision by claiming that his son has been unfairly targeted by his political opposition: “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.”

Well, many reasonable people have indeed looked at the facts of the case and have reasonably concluded that Hunter was not unfairly targeted but instead may have received privileged treatment. If the power to pardon is best used when a miscarriage of justice has occurred, this wasn’t an example of that. Hunter wasn’t failed by the justice system despite what Biden claims, and this is unlike what has happened to many nameless Americans.

If Biden is going to abuse his power to benefit his own family, then we should at least get something in return. There are federally incarcerated individuals who are genuine victims of miscarriages of justice.

There are those who had the misfortune of committing their crimes during the ‘80s and ‘90s when the war on drugs was in full force, leading many of them to receive disproportionately harsh sentences.

The draconian mandatory minimums of the time saw people like Michelle West receive life sentences for first-time drug offenses.

On behalf of the government, Biden should also apologize to and pardon Edward Snowden so that he can return to his family. Snowden did us all a great service by exposing the government’s secret programs to illegally and unconstitutionally spy on us.

Among others, Snowden revealed the existence of PRISM, a mass surveillance program used by the NSA to indiscriminately collect our private communications, violating the Fourth Amendment.

Snowden sacrificed everything to bring to light the abuses of the federal intelligence agencies. He is an American hero who showed us how easily our government is willing to violate our personal freedoms. He did so at the great cost of leaving his home country and his loved ones behind. There is no evidence that his actions harmed anyone, which makes his continued exile all the more unjustified.

Joe Biden’s pardoning of Hunter was an ethically ambiguous decision, so the least he can do is extend that same mercy to the thousands of others who are more deserving.

Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can reach him at [email protected].

Orange County Register

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Edward Snowden deserves a pardon more than Hunter Biden

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