On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) said that there was a degree of “political motivation” to the prosecution of Hunter Biden and “We take President Trump at his word, and he said he was going to go after Hunter Biden.” But argued that the pardon of Hunter sets a bad precedent of normalizing pardons and makes it harder for Democrats to argue against any pardons that might be made during the Trump administration.
Bera said, “I’m empathetic. I know a father wanting to protect his son, a son who’s lived a pretty tragic life. So, just from a human element, we get that. I do think a lot of us feel like this was somewhat politically motivated, but I do think it sets a bad precedent. I think what it does do is, arguments that we had against President Trump doing some of his pardons, it becomes a lot harder for us to make that argument today.”
He added, “I think the investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden had some political motivation to it. I think this is a father who is worried about his son, who decided to protect his son. I know Joe Biden very well. I know how protective he is of his family. And, again, I think this was a father protecting his son. We take President Trump at his word, and he said he was going to go after Hunter Biden. And you see Chairman Comer (R-KY) talking about that on the Oversight Committee. So, I think this was a father protecting his son.”
Bera further stated, “I think it makes it really hard for us to be critical of President-Elect Trump should he use similar tactics going forward.” And “I think it will become really hard for us, if, let’s say President-Elect Trump decides to pardon the January 6 folks. Now what do we say? It becomes really hard because folks will say, well, President Biden did the same exact thing. So, again, I think it just becomes a really difficult precedent for us to defend.”
He also said, “I think Hunter Biden did evade taxes. He paid those taxes back with interest. I think he did lie on — and, again, a jury convicted him. Now, do I think there was an aggressive prosecution of him? Yeah. Do I think Hunter Biden’s lived a tragic life and now he’s clean and sober for five years, trying to put his life back together? Yes. So, can I forgive the sins that he did at that point? Just as I would anyone else who was addicted to drugs and made really bad decisions, but who is now putting their life back together, and hopefully, they can do restitution to move forward.”
Bera concluded that he thinks pardons should be rare, not the norm and he doesn’t like the precedent this sets.
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