Joe Biden‘s decision to grant a blanket pardon to his son Hunter for past crimes for a decade came as a shock to liberal media pundits who fiercely insisted the president wouldn’t let his son off the hook.
Biden and his team repeatedly told the press that he had ruled out a pardon for Hunter, even after he was convicted for gun crimes in Delaware and pleaded guilty to felony tax violations in California.
‘I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him,’ Biden told reporters after the gun trial conviction.
Hunter could have faced decades in jail had his father not pardoned him in a surprising announcement made on Sunday evening.
‘I said I’d abide by the jury decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him,’ Biden told reporters after the gun crimes trial.
At the time, cable news hosts and pundits rallied behind Biden, praising him for his commitment to the rule of law, even when it involved his own son.
MSNBC host and Biden’s former press secretary Jen Psaki described the president’s decision as evidence of his principled honor and character.
Joe Biden’s character as a public servant is what drove him to make clear that the law applies to everyone,’ Psaki said in June.
“[T]he justice system that convicted his only surviving son is the same justice system he vowed to protect,” she added. ‘If that doesn’t tell you who Joe Biden is, I don’t really know what does.’
MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski cited Biden’s decision as evidence that he was a more respectful president than former President Donald Trump.
‘The current president of the United States has so much respect for the law that he has said he would not pardon his son, again, it’s all about the contrast,’ she said.
Jen Psaki once said that President Biden’s promise not to pardon his son was proof he was a decent principled man
A supercut video of pundits praising Biden in June for accepting the result of Hunter’s trial went viral online Monday morning, after the president announced his decision Sunday to pardon him anyway.
Other pundits on MSNBC gushed that Biden was ‘so impressive’ and even comparing him to George Washington for showing restraint and accepting the outcome of his son’s trial and vowing not to pardon Hunter.
Former acting US solicitor general Neil Katyal said Biden’s pronouncement was evidence that Trump supporters were wrong about a political justice system that was ‘politicized’ against them and Trump.
‘I know no other word for that than presidential,’ he said.
Joy Reid on MSNBC
Mika Brzezinski once hailed Biden’s decision not to pardon Hunter as proof he was more virtuous than Trump
Others agreed.
‘He could have ordered the Justice Department to halt the Department of Justice investigation against Joe Biden,’ MSNBC host Joy Reid said. ‘Everyone understands he is a decent man.’
Commentator Molly Jong-Fast shared a similar assessment.
‘I think Joe Biden has a chance here to stand up here for the rule of law, to say the law is the law no matter who it is, no matter if it’s Trump or Biden,’ she said, warning of Trump’s ‘dangerousness’ of destroying the rule of law.
Evan Osnos, New Yorker reporter and author of a book about Biden said it was part of Biden’s appeal to the American electorate.
‘There’s kind of an old school sort of flinty core to his conception of how you are to be in the system, how you are to be a person, a moral person, and ultimately how to contend with questions of power,’ he said.
MSNBC anchor Katy Tur described Biden’s promise not to pardon his son as ‘a good day for the United States that this conviction is a prime example of the way our judicial system is supposed to work.’
‘This was a good day for the system, good day for sort of America as an example of how the rule of law should work,’ Chuck Todd agreed.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will face more questions from reporters when she returns to the briefing room to defend the president’s abrupt change of heart.
Jean-Pierre repeatedly denied that Biden would pardon Hunter, growing frustrated when journalists kept asking her to confirm her answer.
‘So I’ve answered this question before. It was asked of me not too long ago — a couple of weeks ago — and I was very clear, and I said no,’ Jean-Pierre responded to a journalist in September.
In November, after Trump won the presidential election, Karine-Pierre again denied that Biden would pardon his son.
‘We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no,’ she said.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .