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I don't understand the people criticizing Biden for pardoning Hunter. Who would let their son go to jail? Is not a parent's truest role to protect their children?
Maybe you have to let him rot if he had committed murder or another horrible crime. But Hunter was convicted on tax crimes and lying on gun forms. Nothing mortal.
Would anyone here actually let their son go to jail for this stuff. I feel like you would have to be a sociopath to do that to your own kid.
I have a level of sympathy for someone trying to protect their family, even in this context. Like Camus said, between my mother and justice, I pick my mother.
But let us not blind ourselves here, Biden did not do this solely because he so loves his son. He did it in part because he wants to prevent the next administration from investigating his own money laundering shenanigans. You don't get credit for sacrifice if you're saving yourself.
Also he broke his own oath not to do this, whilst nobody forced him to commit to that. This should be reason enough for opprobrium.
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Because he explicitly said that he wouldn't pardon him.
And because rule of law requires everyone to be subject to the same laws, and not to have members of the ruling family treated differently. America is a republic, not a monarchy where the president has the divine right of kings.
This isn't a case of the president correcting an obvious miscarriage of justice, as pardons are generally used in the free world. This is pure corruption/nepotism. It is, dare I say, Trumpian.
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If I thought the prosecution and sentencing was legitimate then absolutely. How is this even a question?
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What about all other dudes convicted on tax crimes and lying on gun forms? Everyone understands that parents want to help their children as much as they can, but imagine a small-town deputy busting a rave and arresting the sheriff's son for drug possession among others. If the deputy let the kid go the scandal would be small. But the son was arrested, booked into jail, everyone arrested accepted the plea bargain, the judge even gave everyone the same jail time. Then the sheriff announced that he's going to build a jail extension. On his property. In his house.
It's corruption, but it's not even a scary form of corruption. He couldn't release him and "lose" the paper trail, he couldn't get the charges dropped, he couldn't threaten the jury. He sat and watched as everyone learned that his son is a user and then exercised his power in the most pitiful way.
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It's Monday. The next thread is going to go up in a couple hours, I think you'll get more eyes on the conversation if you post it there instead.
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