Joe Biden’s Final Shot: Blanket Pardons and Farewell to Accountability

Pardon Power Play: Biden’s Parting Shot at American Justice Betraying the People

In an unprecedented abuse of presidential power that would make Nixon blush, Joe Biden’s final act as President wasn’t a dignified farewell – it was a wholesale distribution of get-out-of-jail-free cards to family, friends, and political allies.

The scope is staggering: his brothers James and Frank, sister Valerie, son Hunter, Covid czar Fauci, January 6th committee members, and even former military brass Mark Milley – all preemptively pardoned for any possible wrongdoing. It’s a family-sized serving of immunity, wrapped in the thin veneer of protecting against “politically motivated prosecutions.”

Let’s be clear about what we’re witnessing. Hunter Biden’s pardon in December 2024 doesn’t just cover his known tax and gun charges – it’s a blank check for any federal offence committed between 2014 and 2024. Coincidentally, 2014 was the same year he joined Ukraine’s Burisma board, just as his father, then Vice President, was pledging American support for Ukraine’s energy independence.

The timing couldn’t be more telling. As Americans struggle with soaring energy bills, the U.S. has become the world’s largest LNG exporter. The Ukrainian conflict, which has cost countless lives, has proved remarkably profitable for certain well-connected individuals and corporations.

Dr Fauci, claiming “no crime” and “no possible grounds” for prosecution, still apparently needed a pardon badly enough to accept one. It’s a curious position: claiming complete innocence while grabbing immunity with both hands.

Even Democrats are alarmed. Senator Adam Schiff warns this sets a dangerous precedent, potentially unleashing a new tradition of presidential pardons-for-all on the way out the door. But perhaps that’s the point – normalising corruption by institutionalising it.

The president’s statement insists these pardons “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgement” of wrongdoing. Yet in the court of public opinion, this eleventh-hour immunity spree looks exactly like what it is: a cover-up on an unprecedented scale.

For ordinary Americans and the rest of the world watching this spectacle, the message is clear: there’s one system of justice for the political elite and their families, and another for everyone else. Biden promised to restore norms to American democracy. Instead, he’s broken them beyond repair.

And therein lies the bitter irony: the establishment’s corruption and naked self-interest that gave America Trump in the first place has come full circle under Biden. Different face, same system, perpetuating the very conditions that breed populist backlash. The more things change, the more they stay the same – except now the corruption doesn’t even bother to hide.

And after Biden’s farewell pardons, who knows what comes next? In this brave new world of preemptive pardons, it seems all crimes become permissible once they’re made forgivable. For those who envision a dystopian future, one thing is clear: the rule of law doesn’t end with a dramatic explosion—it fades away quietly, reduced to irrelevance with the simple stroke of a presidential pen.

Paul Knaggs