For months, President Biden and Democrats hit the airwaves saying it is important to respect the justice system, and the president promised he would not pardon his son, Hunter, for gun charges and tax evasion, and then he just went and did it, circumventing the jury decision and other legal proceedings in the process.
Mike Hydeck: Joining me now to talk about how this compares to other presidential pardons is Professor Tom Balcerski, a presidential scholar from Eastern Connecticut State University. Professor, welcome back. So by most accounts, this is a sweeping pardon covering more than a decade for convictions and possible future cases that could be called during that time frame. Is this the most wide ranging pardon you've seen?
Tom Balcerski: Well, it certainly breaks tradition, and it breaks the tradition of presidents giving a pardon for a specific crime or for a specific set of crimes that maybe range over a defined period, which could be perhaps a year or so. But of course, time is a factor in all of these decisions. But what President Biden did is different. He decided to go back 10 years, which does seem arbitrary. It doesn't necessarily correspond to either of the two cases in which Hunter Biden was involved. Instead, it seems to indicate that perhaps other things about Hunter Biden's life which have not been prosecuted would be protected. So in a sense, it's also pointing towards something else which we're starting to hear emerging from the Biden administration, this idea of a preemptive pardon. So while the Hunter Biden pardon was not preemptive in the sense that it did specifically address the two crimes, there was a period, there was a part of it for the period preceding these last 10 years that makes me wonder also, if something isn't on the horizon as well.
Mike Hydeck: So they're concerned about the incoming Trump administration may be bringing him into court for other offenses, and they're trying to do that. Is a preemptive pardon, something new. I can't remember hearing of that before, but have other presidents done that?
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Tom Balcerski: Well, it hasn't been, that language is new. And this, this framing of pardons being preemptive is also new. There is some historical kind of precedent, both for the larger pardoning power, which does come from the English constitution, and the ability to give clemency of various kinds. In fact, going back to the U.S. constitutional debate, the framers debated this very point, and they were really, some were concerned. These would be more of the anti-Federalist George Mason, the famous defender of freedoms and rights, was one of them talking about, this was a concern that gave too much power into the hands of the president. Others pushed back, and we ended up with the pardon power we have. So I don't think this is something new in a way, but it's the sort of the next phase of a system that has grown in its capacity. When the framers created this pardon power, they did not have in mind, I would say, this idea of trying to give a blanket pardon, though. And that's what this preemptive pardon, this blanket pardon idea, is starting to very much test the limits of what the Constitution permits the president to do.
Mike Hydeck: And those tests have made people in both parties uncomfortable. So, is President Biden, the first president to pardon a relative?
Tom Balcerski: Well, relative is a good and interesting term. I mean, of course, blood relatives, those who he's married into. So there is actually some precedent for relations, shall we say, to the president being pardoned. In Bill Clinton's term in office, he pardoned his brother, half brother, Roger Clinton, who had been convicted back in 1985 and this pardon restored his legal rights to vote and hold office should he do so. But the crime had occurred almost 15 years before the pardon so he'd already done some time in prison. So there was also the sense of that some time had been done. That was, you know, somewhat similar in that regard. But it should also be said that in the case of President Trump, one of his pardons, which was controversial, was to his son in law's father. This would be Jared Kushner, who is married to his daughter Ivanka Trump, his father was given a pardon, and again, is now being, in fact, cited as the potential minister to France, our ambassador to France. So we shouldn't lose track that the relative idea has actually been around for several administrations, and controversial pardons have in some ways been less so about the relatives as about other individuals whose crimes are, well, pretty great.
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Mike Hydeck: And we also know this, pardons have been around since George Washington's time. So that is not new, but President-elect Trump has vowed to pardon January 6th insurrectionists, which could mean hundreds of people all at once, or maybe thousands. Are groups, full groups, often pardoned?
Tom Balcerski: So that actually also is precedent. And so in some ways, I'm not surprised to hear that there could be a blanket pardon, or rather a kind of group pardon. It wouldn't be as large a number as we've seen group pardons in the past, but in the lifetime of some watching the show, they may remember that President Carter, when he took office, gave a kind of sweeping pardon to all those who had dodged the draft during the Vietnam War, which included, you know, thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands, of individuals. That was a rather large statement. That was kind of a clemency, not so much a pardon. But actually going back to the Civil War, so this getting into history, then President Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln after his assassination, gave a blanket pardon. And that's really where that we first see that coming out in American history, to all Confederate officials and kind of officers who fought in the war. This was controversial because it was again directly following the bloody conflict of the Civil War. He eventually would continue with the pardons until his final year in office, where he gave the last pardons to anyone involved in that insurrection. So there is even some precedent, even within a few years after a conflict or major event, for a president to take stock of the situation and do so, but it won't be without controversy.
Mike Hydeck: Professor Tom Balcerski, Eastern Connecticut State University, thanks for your time this morning. We appreciate it.
Tom Balcerski: Thanks for having me on, Mike.
