CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said Monday that President Joe Biden “lied” to Americans about pardoning Hunter Biden, adding that the move would “tarnish” the president’s legacy.
Biden announced the pardon in a statement released by the White House Sunday night, alleging that Hunter had been “singled out” for being the president’s son while accusing “political opponents” of seeking to “break” both him and his son in the statement. Honig told “CNN News Central” host Kate Bolduan that he never believed Biden would “make good” on his repeated vows to not pardon his son.
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“I totally agree with the governor that this pardon will tarnish Joe Biden’s legacy. I mean, Joe Biden, let’s be clear here, he lied to us for a long time,” Honig said. “He said, categorically, I will not pardon my son. He said, I will take it off the table and he couched it in very high minded terminology. I respect the Justice Department. I respect the jury’s verdict. Well, now he’s gone back on that. I don’t know how many people actually believed him. I certainly didn’t. There’s tape of me saying there’s no way he’s going to make good on this, he’s absolutely going to pardon Hunter Biden.”
“But as to whether this tarnishes the justice system, I don’t think I would go that far,” Honig continued. “I think this, like I said, will go down on the list of ignominious presidential pardons, but I don’t think law students 50 or 100 years from now are going to look back at this as a horrific miscarriage of justice that undermines the foundation of our justice system. There is a reasonable argument that in some respects Hunter Biden was treated unfairly. And I think that will give Joe Biden some degree of cover here.”
A jury in Delaware convicted Hunter Biden in June on three felony gun charges in connection with the 2018 purchase of a Colt Cobra .38-caliber revolver. The president’s son also entered a guilty plea on federal tax charges in September in a federal court in California.
Former President Donald Trump said during an Oct. 24 interview with Hugh Hewitt that he was open to pardoning Hunter Biden.
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