A week ago, Cam Edwards laughed when I declared that the Hunter Biden pardon wasn’t a father protecting a son, but a crime boss protecting his bagman. Can didn’t disagree, but I suspect that he didn’t expect me to be quite that blunt in our VIP Gold chat.
At the time, I wondered how many Americans shared my disgust over this act, and how many would sympathize for an old man (allegedly) acting to protect his son, especially with the Protection Racket Media leaning into that explanation, albeit half-heartedly. I’m happy to report that my skeptical assumption that the media’s spin would prevail turned out to be very, very wrong:
Only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter after earlier promising he would do no such thing, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That displeasure tracks with the bipartisan uproar in Washington that ignited over the president’s about-face. The survey found that a relatively small share of Americans “strongly” or “somewhat” approve of the pardon, which came after the younger Biden was convicted on gun and tax charges. About half said they “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove, and about 2 in 10 neither approve nor disapprove.
Is 22% “relatively small”? Yeah, I’d say so! To put this 22% figure in perspective, Joe Biden currently has a 40.5/54.6 favorability rating in the RCP aggregation of polling. The lowest rating in favorability for Joe Biden from any pollster this year has been 32%, most recently from CNBC. Biden’s job approval in RCP is 39.4/55.9, and his lowest in any one poll this year is 35%.
“Relatively small” is a master class in understatement.
Even among Democrats, the pardon looks smelly, although they’re doing their best to hide it. On;y 38% of Democrats approve of the pardon, but only 27% of Democrat responders openly oppose it. For Republicans, 80% disapprove and only seven percent approve; among independents, it’s 12/51. Twelve percent.
By golly, it’s enough to restore one’s faith in humanity! For now, anyway.
It doesn’t restore much faith in “the word of a Biden,” of course, or in the honesty of those who work for a Biden. Remember when Karine Jean-Pierre tried to claim that two-thirds of Americans support the Hunter pardon?
Karine Jean-Pierre: A U.S. Gov. poll that came out, that some of you reported on and it said 64% of the American people agreed with the pardon.
Reality: It was 64% of democrats that support the pardon. ONLY 34% of Americans approve of the Hunter Biden pardon pic.twitter.com/yE4n6nYh37
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) December 7, 2024
That claim was false, as Dalton notes in his tweet. The YouGov poll, taken earlier than this AP/NORC poll, showed 50% of respondents opposed the pardon. Even among Democrats in that poll, approval was pretty weak, with only 37% of Democrats strongly approving of it. Indies split overall at 25/53, and Republicans 13/79.
So now what? Joe Biden may be in DGAF mode (ask your kids), but Democrats certainly won’t be. They have to live with the political consequences of becoming the Party of Pardoned Bagmen, and Biden may not be done yet either. He could still issue pardons for his brothers Frank and Jim, both of whom played roles in the Biden Inc influence-peddling operations that used twenty or so LLCs to launder foreign payments to family members, not to mention all of the recipients of that income. Will the sharply negative response to Hunter’s pardon make Biden think twice about pardoning his family members?
Probably not, but it should prompt Congress to consider amending the Constitution to either contain presidential pardon authority or at least provide reviews and checks on that power. Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Democrat donor Marc Rich should have pushed Congress to act 25 years ago, but this bagman payoff should be the last straw. Several states constrain executive clemency authority, so the models exist for Congress to consider. If Biden starts issuing pre-emptive pardons to put bureaucrats beyond accountability for their actions in his administration, the need will become especially acute — and the pressure should become irresistible. The results of this poll is a large step in that correct direction.
