乔·拜登总统决定赦免他的儿子亨特，这是在他的政党选举后的自我反省中扔了一颗炸弹。
民主党人仍在筛选上个月输给当选总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的废墟，党内一些人指责一个名声——无论是否合理——是精英阶层脱离了日常选民的关切，同时讨好其他富有和人脉广泛的盟友。
现在，在几个月的誓言之后，他不会这样做，并认为司法系统适当地对待了特朗普，拜登正在放弃他儿子在税收和枪支指控上被认为是政治化的定罪，这引发了一个警告，这一举动强化了人们对该党不守信用并按自己的一套规则行事的看法。
“这实际上强化了民主党在选举中面临的挑战，即精英与精英之间的对话，让彼此相信他们是正确的。民主党策略师、西弗吉尼亚州参议员乔·曼钦(Joe Manchin)的前助手克里斯·科菲尼(Chris Kofinis)说。
“这不是赦免儿子的问题。其他人的儿子呢?”Kofinis补充道。“如果你要采取这种戏剧性的行动，让你家庭中的一个人受益，你有责任走出去，说出原因。但你不能说原因是因为司法系统被操纵了，因为你在过去的四年里一直说它没有被操纵。所以，这不是为特朗普操纵的，而是为你儿子操纵的?”
亨特·拜登在申请枪支时谎报了吸毒情况，被判犯有联邦枪支罪，并承认了九项与税收有关的指控，包括三项重罪。
总统周日晚上的声明标志着假日周末结束时的一个爆炸性消息。在信中，拜登坚持说，在“我在国会的几个政治对手煽动他们攻击我并反对我的选举”之后，他的儿子受到了“不同的对待”。
赦免的范围也特别广泛，涵盖了从2014年1月1日到2024年12月1日期间所有“他犯下或可能犯下或参与的针对美国的罪行”，不包括枪支和税收指控。
共和党人迅速对此举表示不满，指责这是对司法的操纵，特别是在拜登数月来表示他不会利用自己的权力干预儿子的法律纠纷之后。
“乔·拜登从头到尾都在撒谎，”众议院监督委员会主席詹姆斯·卡莫说。,在X上的一篇帖子中写道。“不幸的是，拜登总统和他的家人没有坦白他们几十年来的不法行为，而是继续尽一切可能逃避责任。”
“今晚的赦免是错误的。怀俄明州参议员约翰·巴拉索补充说，“这向美国人民证明了存在着一个双重司法体系。”他将在下届国会中成为参议院共和党二号人物。
周日晚些时候，民主党议员对赦免一事三缄其口，但到周一下午，他们的反对声音更大了。
“民主党人应该从拜登担任总统的第一天起就支持改革和削减赦免权。作为一名父亲，我同情拜登总统，但我们必须是改革的一方，无论是关于古老的赦免权，反对超级政治行动委员会还是广泛的战争权力，”加利福尼亚州民主党众议员罗·卡纳说，在X上说.
“拜登总统赦免他儿子的决定是错误的。总统的家人和盟友不应该得到特殊待遇。这是对权力的不正当使用，它侵蚀了人们对我们政府的信任，并鼓励其他人扭曲司法以符合他们的利益。增加.
现在，一些党内人士对美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)警告说，民主党人可能会被视为执行他们在特朗普就职前警告他的相同行为，这使得他们关于司法系统完整性的竞选言论只适用于政治分歧的一方。
“这多少是在玩弄(选民)，”一位民主党民意测验专家表示。“对于普通的独立选民来说，剩下的就是，双方只是在互相玩游戏。他们没有任何这种说辞的意思。”
白宫周一试图控制损失，将责任归咎于共和党人，共和党人将从下个月晚些时候开始统一控制华盛顿，多年来一直在努力解决亨特·拜登的法律纠纷和商业关系。
白宫新闻秘书卡琳·让·皮埃尔告诉记者，拜登发布赦免的部分原因是“因为他们看起来不像他的政治对手会放手。”
“他们会继续追捕他的儿子。那是他所相信的，”她补充道，拒绝猜测此举的政治后果。
“有两件事可能是真的。你可以相信司法部系统，也可以相信这个过程受到了政治影响，”她坚持说。
赦免争议正在到来，因为一些民主党人首先指责拜登竞选连任的决定是哈里斯失败的原因。
虽然许多民主党人对拜登作为父亲的地位表示同情，但他们表示，这标志着在该党为未来制定新剧本之际，将总统置于后视镜之外的另一个原因——一些人希望，这种分离可以最大限度地减少任何长期影响。
“我认为民主党已经非常彻底地离开了他，我不知道这是否会切断拜登和未来民主党之间的联系。一位资深民主党战略家说。
“我认为这在政治上是愚蠢的，”该人士表示。“这让我们看起来很糟糕，让我们看起来没有道德制高点，我们要么需要承认这一点，要么需要承认我们需要停止说教。我认为这是糟糕的政治，但我不清楚具体会有什么影响。”
不过，这并不意味着对任何长期影响持怀疑态度的民主党人对这一举措感到满意。
几乎每个接受美国广播公司新闻采访的民主党人都担心，拜登的赦免为特朗普打开了大门，让他们可以保护他们预测不值得赦免的人。为了在更广泛的改造中抵御任何长期的余波，甚至是理论上的，一些人认为党的领导人的强烈谴责可能会有很大帮助。
“这不会消除它，因为拜登是美国总统，”民主党民意测验专家说。“但如果民主党人希望在后拜登时代重塑自己，他们需要在困难的时候开始谴责拜登，而不是在未来更容易的时候。”
Biden's pardon of son, Hunter, roils Democrats' post-election reckoning: ANALYSIS
President Joe Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter, is throwing a bomb in his party's post-election soul-searching.
Democrats are still sifting through the rubble of their loss to President-elect Donald Trump last month, with some in the party blaming a reputation -- justified or not -- as elitists out of touch with everyday voters' concerns while cozying up to other wealthy and well-connected allies.
Now, after months of vows that he wouldn't do so and arguing the justice system treated Trump appropriately, Biden is scrapping his son's supposedly politicized convictions on tax and gun charges, sparking a warning the move fortifies perceptions that the party doesn't keep its word and is playing by its own set of rules.
"This literally reinforces the very challenge that Democrats confronted in the election, which is elites talking to elites convincing each other that they're right. Well, you can't get any more elite than this," said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va.
"It's not the question of pardoning the son. What about everybody else's son?" Kofinis added. "If you're going to take this kind of a dramatic action that's going to benefit a single person in your family, you have a responsibility to go out there and say why. But you can't say the reason why is because the justice system is rigged, because you just spent the last four years saying it wasn't rigged. So, it's not rigged for Trump, but it's rigged for your son?"
Hunter Biden had been convicted on federal gun charges after lying about his drug use on an application for a firearm and had pleaded guilty to nine tax-related charges, including three felonies.
The president's announcement Sunday evening marked a bombshell at the tail end of a holiday weekend. In it, Biden insisted that his son had been "treated differently" after "several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election."
The pardon is also particularly broad, covering all "offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in" from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024, beyond the gun and tax charges.
Republicans swiftly cried foul at the move, lambasting it as a manipulation of justice, particularly after Biden for months said he wouldn't use his power to intervene in his son's legal troubles.
"Joe Biden has lied from start to finish," House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky.,wrote in a post on X. "It's unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability."
"Tonight's pardon is wrong. It proves to the American people that there is a two-tier system of justice," added Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, who will be the No. 2 Senate Republican in the next Congress.
Democratic lawmakers were tighter-lipped over the pardon late Sunday but were more vocal in their opposition by Monday afternoon.
"Democrats should have been for reforming and curtailing pardon power from Day 1 of the Biden Presidency. As a father, I empathize with President Biden, but we must be the party of reform whether it's about the archaic pardon power, opposing super PACs or broad war powers," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.,said on X.
"President Biden's decision to pardon his son was wrong. A president's family and allies shouldn't get special treatment. This was an improper use of power, it erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests," Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich,added.
Now, some party operatives warned to ABC News, Democrats risked being seen as executing the same behavior they'd been warning against from Trump ahead of his inauguration, making their campaign rhetoric about the justice system's integrity apply to only one side of the political divide.
"It is somewhat toying with [voters]," one Democratic pollster said. "The takeaway, to the extent that there are any left, for the average, independent voter is, is that, both sides are just playing games with each other. They don't mean any of this rhetoric."
The White House Monday sought to play damage control, laying blame at the feet of Republicans who will have unified control of Washington starting later next month and have hammered away at Hunter Biden's legal travails and business ties for years.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Biden issued the pardon in part "because they didn't seem like his political opponents would let go of it."
"They would continue to go after his son. That's what he believed," she added, declining to speculate on the political fallout of the move.
"Two things could be true. You can believe in the department of justice system, and you could also believe that the process was affected politically," she insisted.
The pardon controversy is coming as some Democrats partly blame Biden's decision to run for reelection in the first place as a reason for Harris' defeat.
While many Democrats expressed empathy for Biden's position as a father, they suggested it marked another reason to put the president in the rearview mirror as the party puts together a new playbook for the future -- a separation that, some hoped, could minimize any long-term fallout.
"I think the party is already going to move on from him so deeply and so completely that I don't know that this severs that connection between Biden and the future the Democratic Party any more or any less than it already would have been. If anything, it may quicken it," one senior Democratic strategist said.
"I think it's politically stupid," the person said. "It makes us look bad, and it makes us look like we don't have the moral high ground, and we either need to own that, or we need to own that we need to stop being so preachy. I think it's bad politics, but it's not clear to me what exactly the repercussions will be."
Still, that doesn't mean Democrats who are skeptical of any long-term implications are pleased with the move.
Nearly every Democrat who spoke to ABC News worried that Biden's pardon kicked the door open for Trump to protect people they predicted will be unworthy of pardons. And to fend off any prolonged fallout amid a broader makeover, even theoretical, some suggested that a robust denouncement from party leaders could go a long way.
"It's not going to eliminate it, because Biden is the president of the United States," the Democratic pollster said. "But if Democrats ever hope to reinvent themselves in a post-Biden future, they're going to need to start by denouncing Biden now when it's hard, not in the future, when it'll be easier."
