ANALYSIS — The Biden White House has a self-made credibility problem.
And that’s inconvenient timing, considering Joe Biden’s team, fresh off a foreign trip, must shift quickly into legacy mode. When the president awkwardly, and to tepid applause this week in Angola, touted the domestic infrastructure law he helped craft, it seemed clear his legacy was on his mind.
But the effectiveness of any coming sales pitch will likely be hamstrung by his pardon of son Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal gun charges and had pleaded guilty on federal tax evasion charges. The move — which he’d previously said he wouldn’t make — has been slammed by Republican lawmakers and more than a few Democrats and its rationale lambasted by a federal judge.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the president’s top spokesperson and chief image defender, told reporters, as she has so many times over the years, that they simply should not trust their lyin’ eyes — and ears.
“One of the things that the president always believes is to be truthful to the American people. That is something that he always truly believes,” she said Monday, while en route to Africa aboard Air Force One, of Biden’s about-face
Biden returned to Washington early Thursday morning from his multiday Angola visit, and there was no daily press briefing scheduled as travel-weary staffers, including Jean-Pierre, got some needed rest.
She could return to the lectern in the White House briefing room as early as Friday. But the pardon drama has created a complication — for both the president and press secretary.
After all, Biden on numerous occasions told interviewers and shouting White House press corps members that he would not pardon his troubled son. The former two-term vice president and longtime senator did so for over a year with very non-politician answers — meaning, he was both concise and clear.
One example came on June 6 in France, when ABC News anchor David Muir asked Biden if he had ruled out a pardon for his son. “Yes,” Biden replied, without adding a qualifier that might be useful down the road if he reversed himself.
The same goes for Jean-Pierre, who had also fielded many questions about a possible pardon.
At one September 2023 briefing, this was her reply to the Hunter leniency question: “I’ve answered this question before. It was asked of me not too long ago, a couple weeks ago, and I was very clear, and I said, ‘No.’” Fast forward to June of this year, and this was Jean-Pierre’s response to a similar query: “No. No. It’s a no. It will always be a no. Biden will not pardon his son Hunter.”
Press secretaries are responsible for protecting the sitting president, spinning circumstances in his favor and deflecting blame elsewhere. Jean-Pierre’s answers were, at the time, rather refreshing because they were so clear and unequivocal.
Then came Sunday’s sudden pardon.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the courtroom — with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process,” Biden said in an evening statement. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong.”
The Donald Trump-appointed federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case in California strongly disagreed, stating that the president was guilty of too much revisionist history.
“But two federal judges expressly rejected Mr. Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President,” Judge Mark C. Scarsi, wrote in a Tuesday order responding to Hunter Biden’s notice to the court of the pardon.
“And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges. In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people,” Scarsi wrote, adding that “nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”
A former adviser to Barack Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns, Spencer Critchley, said he believed “Biden made the right decision, but gave the wrong explanation, and that this is likely to be how history will judge it.”
“Under normal circumstances, I’d say he should have stuck with his commitment to stand clear of the justice system, however, the point this time is not to overturn past decisions, but to prevent the coming authoritarian abuses of the justice system, promised by Donald Trump and his appointees,” Critchley said in a statement Thursday. “Trump has been closely following the authoritarian playbook and dismantling the institutions of democracy. That includes turning justice into a weapon, which he has specifically promised to wheel against Hunter Biden, among many others. As the old dictator’s motto goes, ‘For my friends, anything. For my enemies, justice.'”
Trying to ‘break Hunter’
But Biden’s statement went in a different direction, a parental one. It contained three sentences that the father in chief opted for months against sharing with the country, which might have explained his paternal plight.
“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden said. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of Biden’s top allies, said this week that he “took the president at his word” that he would not pardon his son, adding: “So by definition, I’m disappointed and can’t support the decision.”
The White House is also yet to clearly explain why Biden made such a dramatic about-face. Nor have his aides spoken to why the country should still believe his declaration in the pardon announcement that “for my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth.”
The irony of the current situation is as undeniable as it is surreal.
After all, it was the president, Jean-Pierre and the rest of Team Biden who spent four years telling the country about the dangers of Trump’s many false statements and lies.
The tarnished credibility raises questions about Biden’s forecast of the American people’s thinking about his reversal: “They’ll be fair-minded.”
Whether or not that proves true is up to history. The results of last month’s presidential election suggest an electorate that had some Biden fatigue.
Whenever the president or Jean-Pierre next take questions from a jilted press corps, there likely will be pointed questions about whether the White House has been truly “fair-minded” with reporters and, more importantly, the people. Not just about Hunter Biden’s case, but on a myriad of issues.
The stunning reversal has clearly allowed Republicans to pounce, another self-inflicted wound to wrap a presidency colored by them. Some GOP lawmakers contended on social media that Biden’s volte-face justified their claims of a dishonest and corrupt administration and family.
Several GOP sources said Trump — who faced 91 criminal charges and whom media outlets and independent fact-checkers have cited for thousands of false statements since entering the political arena — has a chance to flip yet another script on Democrats.
“President Trump’s bold leadership and direct communication style bring a unique energy to governance. … This means clear direction and the chance to implement a vision that resonates with millions of Americans,” one former House leadership aide said in an email. “[Trump’s] ability to rally public support will be a key advantage.”
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