President Biden faces backlash from Democrats for breaking promise by pardoning son

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is facing a backlash from fellow Democrats for his "full and unconditional" pardon of Hunter Biden after repeatedly promising he would not use his presidential authority to shield his son from federal charges.

"He didn't need to tell the American public, 'I will not do this,' and he did. And when you make a promise, you got to keep it," U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters on Monday.

The criticism from Democrats comes after some were already blaming Biden for his party's presidential election loss last month, arguing the 82-year-old president should have abandoned his 2024 reelection plans much earlier to give Vice President Kamala Harris or another nominee a better chance to defeat President-elect Donald Trump.

For more than a year, Biden and his aides have said the president would not pardon Hunter Biden, the subject of a lengthy federal investigation dating back to the Trump administration. The 54-year-old son of the president was convicted last June in a Delaware jury trial of buying and possessing a gun while being addicted to drugs and pleaded guilty in California in September to failing to pay taxes for several years during the same period.

But in a statement Sunday night, Biden said his son was unfairly "singled out" for charges other Americans would not have faced and said there's no reason to believe his Republican opponents would stop. "Enough is enough," President Biden said, announcing an unusually broadly written pardon that gives Hunter Biden a reprieve for any federal offenses committed between 2014 and the present.

More: Hunter Biden pardon 'unprecedented' and 'very unusual,' experts say

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-.Colo., said Biden "put personal interest ahead of duty," adding that Biden's decision to pardon his son "further erodes Americans' faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all."

Bennet said he doesn't believe the pardon will help Biden's legacy, calling it a "gift to Donald Trump" and predicting Trump will cite the Hunter Biden pardon in issuing his own pardons.

"It just gives the American people the sense that there's one system for the rich and powerful and another system for everybody else," Bennet said in an interview on CNN. "Which is one of the reasons we haven't been able to keep Donald Trump from coming back here for a second term. It's in that terrible context that this decision was made by the president."

Senator-elect Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told USA TODAY he was disappointed by Biden's decision.

"I think it sets a bad precedent. I understand as a father he wanted to help his son, but that precedent will almost certainly be abused by his successor, and he committed to not pardoning his son,” said Schiff, a longtime California congressman who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee. “He should have kept that.”Schiff added that Trump “is already citing it as a precedent to pardon the January 6 attackers, who injured police, beat them and bear sprayed them, and there's no telling what other abuses are possible.”“So I think it was a very ill-considered decision by President Biden,” he said.

More: Trump links Hunter Biden's pardon to Jan. 6 rioters

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, called Biden's pardon "wrong."

"A president's family and allies shouldn't get special treatment," Peters said in a statement on X. "This was an improper use of power, it erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests."

Biden framed his presidency in part around restoring trust in democratic institutions and the rule of law after Trump spent four years sowing mistrust and accusing the Justice Department of being "weaponized" against him. Yet in his pardon of Hunter Biden, Biden echoed similar sentiments.

"Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice," Biden said.

Following the pardon, a federal judge Tuesday dismissed Hunter Biden's gun case, which involved three gun charges related to purchasing a revolver in 2018 while he was addicted to unlawful drugs.

The White House defended Biden's pardon. “One of the reasons the president did the pardon is because it didn’t seem like his political opponents would let go of it," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday on Air Force One. "It didn’t seem like they would move on.”

Not all Democrats are criticizing Biden, with some agreeing that Hunter Biden wouldn't have been prosecuted if not for his last name.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder called the pardon “warranted” and said that most prosecutors would not have pursued the gun case unless the weapon was later used in a violent crime. Holder, who led the Justice Department during the Obama administration when Joe Biden was vice president, contrasted the Hunter Biden prosecution with Trump’s announcement that he will nominate longtime Trump ally Kash Patel as FBI director.

“Ask yourself a vastly more important question,” Holder wrote on X. “Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s preeminent law enforcement investigative organization? Obvious answer: hell no.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told reporters he could sympathize with Biden's decision. "Given the extent to which Donald Trump is politicizing the FBI, I think it's understandable," Wyden said. "I think it's understandable. I want to emphasize that."

Asked if he would do the same thing in his position, Wyden said, "It is understandable."

But U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., like several other Democrats in Congress, expressed concern about the potential precedent with Biden's action.

“I am disappointed President Biden went back on his pledge not to pardon his son," Warner said in a statement. "I am concerned about the precedent this sets, and the message it sends to Americans about how our justice system works.”

Contributing Sudiksha Kochi and Savannah Kuchar. Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly Twitter, @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden criticized by fellow Democrats for pardoning son Hunter