Pardon the Pardon

Today’s notice: A new way to look at the Hunter Biden pardon. The most cynical way possible to look at the Hunter Biden pardon. Finally, are Republicans going to give the past lives of two controversial Trump nominees a pardon?

Pardon Me

The outrage over the Hunter Biden pardon has fallen into two buckets: the first, that it is rank hypocrisy; the second, that Joe Biden is signaling that Donald Trump is onto something with his weaponization-of-the-government schtick. The result has been a general take that the president’s clemency powers are bad.

But we’ve started hearing a third bipartisan argument: presidents’ incredibly broad clemency power is actually really good, and the problem with Biden is he hasn’t pardoned enough. According to the DOJ, he has used his clemency power less than any president in the last 25 years.

Rachel Wright is a former Chuck Grassley staffer and the national director of Right On Crime, a conservative criminal-justice-reform advocacy group. She told us she’s looking forward to the upcoming GOP trifecta, name dropping Rep. Jim Jordan as an ally. So, not a lefty to say the least.

Last week she posted an eerily prescient video about presidential clemency, pegged to Biden’s stunt pardon of Thanksgiving turkeys. Pardoning could be used to showcase that public safety is not put at risk by releasing some imprisoned people, she said. But she lamented that presidents lack transparency and wait too long to issue pardons. As if on cue, Hunter was pardoned by his dad.

“It just heightens the perception that clemency is not good,” Wright told us Monday. “That it’s unfair, that it’s about who you know. Not second chances, not righting wrongs.”

Wright pointed to Biden’s publicized marijuana-clemency effort that resulted in few, if any, actual pardons as an example of how not to do it. “His use of the pardon power has been a little toothless,” she said. “I think we all expected more, frankly.”

She’s not the only one. NOTUS’ Oriana González, Violet Jira and Jasmine Wright report that progressives are also upset about the Hunter pardon because it was one of too few acts of clemency by Biden. Rep. Ayanna Pressley told Oriana that if Biden wants to get clear of this pardon kerfuffle, he should crank up the clemency machine to 11. He “has the opportunity to cement his legacy as one of the most compassionate and impactful presidents of our time,” she said.

—Evan McMorris-Santoro

The Emo Vibes Behind the Hunter Biden Pardon

People close to the president’s pardon decision knew there would be massive blowback. They’re just not in the mood to worry about it, Jasmine reports. “The moral high ground doesn’t exist anymore. We elected a convict. America doesn’t care,” one senior Democrat with knowledge of conversations around the pardon told her.

The White House did talk to allies to defend Biden’s move once the news broke, but there is a feeling among some Democrats that the anger is a waste of energy. “Anyone who thinks that Democrats are going to win any election on how much the Trump administration adheres to norms and values of the last 100 years has not been paying attention to American politics recently,” Jamal Simmons, former comms director for Kamala Harris, told Jasmine.

Read more here.

Front Page

• Biden Pardoned His Son. Criminal Justice Advocates Ask: What About Everyone Else?: “I think everyone deserves the same opportunity he’s just given his son.”
• Why Some Senate Republicans Don’t Want to Punt a Spending Fight: It would give members more bandwidth to work on Trump’s priorities.
• All Senate Republicans Sound Open to Kash Patel. Many Are Enthusiastic About Him: Patel’s vows to “shut down” the FBI are hardly sounding disqualifying for Republican senators.

Senators Hedge on Hegseth

As allegations of heavy drinking, womanizing and sexual assault dog Trump’s DefSec nominee Pete Hegseth, NOTUS’ John T. Seward set out to determine whether the accusations matter to senators. Turns out they might…

• Sen. Tommy Tuberville: “As I told him, I said, ‘You’re gonna have to have all your ducks in a row.’ And he will when it comes to explaining all that.”
• Sen. John Kennedy: “Well, that’s why God made confirmation hearings.”

Or not…

• Sen. Cynthia Lummis: “Are soldiers sometimes wild childs? Yeah, that can happen, but it is very clear that this guy is the guy who, at a time when Americans are losing confidence in their own military and our ability to project strength around the world, that Pete Hegseth is the answer to that concern.”

Read the story here.

Does the Nunes Memo Ring a Bell?

Trump’s new pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, to replace his old pick, Christopher Wray, has a long history with the president-elect. We dredged up three issues that will almost certainly come up during confirmation.

1. As CoS to House Intel Chair Devin Nunes, Patel was a key player in efforts to undermine the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Most famously, he authored the so-called “Nunes Memo” that left a lasting impression on Trump.

2. Patel met with the Jan. 6 Select Committee in Dec. 2021. CNN reported at the time that the panel told the once chief of staff to Acting Defense Sec. Christopher Miller that “there is substantial reason to believe” he had critical insight into the DOD and White House’s preparation for and response to the insurrection. The committee was also interested in Patel’s communications with then WH CoS Mark Meadows.

3. Patel is also caught up in the Mar-a-Lago documents case as one of the people Trump approved for access to his presidential records. He claimed that Trump had “declassified” the records.

Bonus: In his book “Government Gangsters,” he named his members of “deep state” (read: possible targets, as Tim Miller put it). He’s also wrote a children’s book, “The Plot Against the King,” in which he recounts a wizard Kash’s attempts to save “King Donald” from villains like “Hillary Queenton.”

—Riley Rogerson

Democrats Play Whack-a-Mole

Senate Democrats may have brokered a deal to keep Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker from duking it out for the No. 3 slot (by creating a new, so far undefined No. 4 role), but things aren’t so warm and fuzzy in the House Democratic Caucus. Sure, Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva quit his reelection bid, paving the way for Jared Huffman, but there are two leadership fights we’re watching:

• Rep. Jamie Raskin is challenging Jerry Nadler on Judiciary. (If Raskin is successful, he would leave an opening atop Oversight.)
• Rep. Jim Costa will challenge David Scott on Agriculture.

—Riley Rogerson

Not Us

We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.

• Pete Hegseth’s Secret History by Jane Mayer at The New Yorker
• We haven’t seen a pardon as sweeping as Hunter Biden’s in generations by Betsy Woodruff Swan at Politico
• Tulsi Gabbard Through The Years: What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been by Patti Epler at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Be Social

We’ve tried keeping up with him in the halls. It’s true. The man can hustle.

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