The Post & Email by William L. Kovacsy
During President Donald Trump’s first term (2017-2021), hordes of Democrat lawyers took to research and writing law review articles on why Trump could not pardon himself, why pardons of family members and close associates would be invalid, and how Trump could be prosecuted as a co-conspirator for obstructing justice by abusing his pardon power. Since President Trump did not pardon himself, his family members, or staff, the Republicans on the Hill and in the administration should repurpose the Democrats’ excellent research. It is comprehensive research on the eight-hundred-year history of pardons, the constitutional case law on pardons, and the limits of the pardon power. Congress and the administration should read it as they seek to expose the truth behind Biden’s pardons.
More significantly, these articles provide a well-crafted roadmap for the Trump administration and/or Congress to evaluate whether President Biden committed a crime by pardoning Hunter Biden and others who may have been involved in a conspiracy to defraud the federal government by giving false testimony and misusing government resources.
Let’s start with the most common conclusion. In 2020, Bob Bauer, White House Counsel to Obama and Biden’s personal lawyer, wrote:
A pardon or commutation is ‘absolute’ for the beneficiary of the crime pardoned. But a pardon does not afford the president, as the grantor, immunity from the commission of a crime in connection with granting the pardon.
While Bauer believes his target is Trump, his conclusions expose Biden to prosecution should the pardons be part of protecting himself.
Expanding on Bauer’s narrow focus on abuses of the pardon power is a sixty-page, well-cited 2021 University of Chicago law review, Limiting the Pardon Power, by professor Albert W. Alschuler. The professor outlines several ways to prosecute President Trump if he misused his pardon power. The focus of Alschuler, like Bauer, was to ensure Trump was indicted for abuse of the pardon power. They assumed Trump would issue a self-pardon or participate in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Under the law of unintended consequences, the Democrats’ theory applies to Biden’s use of the pardon power.
Alschuler notes:
The pardon power [1] does not authorize a president to violate criminal statutes that are broadly enforced and apply to public officials in the same way they apply to everyone else. [2] Pardons granted to individuals that fail to specify the convictions they forgive are invalid. [3] Pardons are also invalid when they have been obtained by trickery, bribery, or other fraudulent conduct.
All three concerns are relevant to the facts underlying activities of Hunter Biden’s pardon and the pardons issued to the January 6th Committee and administration officials.
Under Professor Alschuler’s theory, the pardons could be deemed invalid since President Biden did not specify the crimes committed. Moreover, the allegations against Hunter Biden, specifically the improper payments from Burisma and the implication of sharing them with Joe Biden, raise the question: was the pardon of Hunter and the other government officials granted as part of a conspiracy?
More:
https://www.thepostemail.com/2025/01/24/are-bidens-pardons-valid-democrat-legal-scholars-say-no/
