Biden lets his family off the hook for over a decade of potential crimes with last-minute pardon
In his final minutes in office, President Joe Biden issued an unconditional pardon for several members of his family, including individuals who were apparently involved in seedy foreign deals with him and his felonious son Hunter Biden, another recipient of a pardon covering over a decade of potential and recorded crimes.
The deeply unpopular former president, who just hours earlier issued pardons for Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Jan. 6 committee, and D.C. Metro Police officers who testified before the committee, issued a blanket pardon shortly before leaving office for his brothers Francis Biden and James Biden, his sister-in-law Sara Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, and his brother-in-law John Owens for any nonviolent offenses committed against the U.S. since Jan. 1, 2014.
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"My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics," the 82-year-old Democrat said in a statement. "Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end."
'Being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations.'
After years of his administration waging lawfare against his political opponents, Biden stated without a trace of irony that "baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families."
"Even when individuals have done nothing wrong and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage their reputations and finances," continued Biden.
Despite congressional investigators finding a great deal of interest in the Biden family's dealings — Sara Biden and James Biden's alleged efforts, for instance, to launder money from a Chinese associate apparently linked to the communist regime — Biden suggested that the issuance of the pardons "should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing."
Having let his family off the hook for 10 years' worth of potential crimes and commuted the sentences of child-killers, fraudsters, and other degenerate convicts, it appears that Biden has eroded any high ground Democrats might have laid claim to when criticizing President Donald Trump's imminent pardons.
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Biden continues 11th-hour clemency blitz, commuting sentences for another 2,500 criminals
President Joe Biden continued his last-minute clemency blitz, announcing Friday morning that he is commuting sentences for another 2,500 individuals.
A press release from the White House revealed that the convicted criminals were all sentenced for nonviolent drug offenses.
'Will forever define President Biden's legacy.'
Biden argued that the individuals "are serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice."
The outgoing president, who announced 1,500 commutations and 39 pardons in December, boasted about his latest move.
"With this action, I have now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any president in U.S. history," his statement read.
"Today's clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes," Biden continued. "As Congress recognized through the Fair Sentencing Act and the First Step Act, it is time that we equalize these sentencing disparities."
He called it "an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars."
Biden indicated that he plans to order additional commutations and pardons in the final few days of his presidency.
FWD.us, a political organization that advocates for immigration and criminal justice reform, applauded Biden's decision to commute thousands of sentences.
Zoë Towns, the organization's executive director, said, "These final clemency actions will forever define President Biden's legacy on justice."
"We're grateful for President Biden's final acts of leadership in delivering relief, justice, and mercy to thousands and, importantly, calling attention to the harms of extreme sentencing and the benefits of reform," she added.
Last month, the president came under bipartisan fire for going back on his promise by issuing a broad pardon for his son, Hunter Biden.
He also commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row, allowing them to dodge execution and instead spend life in prison. One of those men was a convicted serial killer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered two young girls, ages 8 and 9.
The Republican Party responded to Biden's actions in a post on X.
"On Joe Biden's way out the door, he gave clemency to dozens of death row inmates. In five days, we will have a President who puts victims and their families ahead of cold-blooded criminals."
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Michael Cohen asks the president for the Hunter Biden treatment in cringeworthy appeal on MSNBC
Trump critic and convicted fraudster Michael Cohen demanded on MSNBC's "The Weekend" Saturday that President Joe Biden give him the full Hunter Biden treatment.
Cohen, the star witness in President-elect Donald Trump's hush-money trial who has yet to make good on his vow to leave the country over his former client's re-election, told Symone Sanders-Townsend and her fellow MSNBC talking heads, "I put in the application for a presidential pardon because I believe that Joe Biden has the same responsibility to me that he had to his own son."
After promising he would not do so, Biden issued a "full and unconditional" pardon for son Hunter Biden on Dec. 1, giving his felonious son a pass on any crimes committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024, including his felony conviction on gun charges and for his felony tax offenses. Blaze News previously noted that the timeline specified in the blanket pardon neatly matched up with the Biden family's dealings with the Ukrainian company Burisma as well as with the communist state-linked organization CEFC China Energy.
According to the 82-year-old Democratic president, his son — who had an affair with his dead brother's wife, refused to acknowledge and then attempted to avoid paying child support for the daughter he sired with a former stripper, and allegedly engaged in an international influence-peddling scheme with his father — was a victim of a "miscarriage of justice."
'You're not the president's son.'
Cohen, who was sentenced in 2018 to three years in prison for tax evasion, making false statements to a federally insured bank, and campaign finance violations, apparently also thinks himself a victim, telling the talking heads, "I would expect that the same exact pardon that he gave his son has to go to me and to anybody else that's on that enemies list, whether they want it or not, because I assure you, solitary confinement, where I did 51 days, sucks."
Cohen was reportedly moved from a minimum-security camp of the Otisville Federal Correctional Institution northwest of New York City to a disciplinary section of the prison in 2020 following an alleged altercation over his internet use.
After stating she believes "wholeheartedly" that Cohen's solitary confinement was a "terrible experience" and that his point about the supposed enemies list "is a good one," Sanders-Townsend, a former adviser for Kamala Harris, asked, "Have you heard anything back from the administration?"
Sanders-Townsend occupied the space of an answer with blather about Biden's unwillingness to issue pardons to those who don't want them, then suggested that Cohen's invocation of Hunter Biden was a losing strategy.
The talking head said she was struck by Cohen's comparison of himself to the first son and noted, "I wonder if — well, I'm just going to tell you, Michael Cohen, because we're on national TV, we're having the conversation — I don't necessarily think that's your best way to go get a pardon. I mean, Hunter Biden is the president's last surviving son."
"I'm somebody's son also, by the way," responded Cohen, apparently missing the point.
"Agreed," said Sanders-Townsend. "You are somebody's son, but, I mean, to be very clear, you're not the president's son."
Cohen, who emphasized to MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Friday that there was "nothing wrong with" pursuing the pardon. If successful, the former Trump attorney who was disbarred in New York would join the ranks of thousands of other convicts to whom Biden has granted clemency, including a child-raping serial killer, a city-impoverishing fraudster, and other predators.
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Schumer, silent on Biden's clemency for cop-killers and child-raping serial killer, tells Trump not to pardon J6 protesters
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is among the Democrats apparently keen to pretend that any kind of presidential pardon is now off the table after President Joe Biden gave an "unconditional" blanket pardon to his felonious son Hunter Biden and commuted the sentences of monstrous child-killers, city-impoverishing fraudsters, and other predators.
Schumer noted Monday on X, "It is utterly shameful that the president-elect is considering pardons for January 6 rioters."
After winning the election in a landslide, President Donald Trump told Time magazine in an interview, "We're going to look at each individual case, and we're going to do it very quickly, and it's going to start in the first hour that I get into office."
"A vast majority should not be in jail, and they've suffered gravely," added Trump.
Weeks later, Trump reiterated in an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" that he would begin issuing pardons to Jan. 6 protesters on his first day back in office, noting that unlike the radicals involved in the genuinely deadly BLM riots who largely got out legally unscathed after inflicting billions of dollars of damage on the nation, Jan. 6 protesters were treated "unfair[ly]."
'Nothing that happened on Jan. 6 calls for a 22-year prison sentence.'
"Those people have suffered long and hard. And there may be some exceptions to it. I have to look," said Trump.
When asked whether he would consider also pardoning violent protesters, Trump noted that some of the convictions for violent crimes were bogus and said, "I'm going to look at everything. We're going to look at individual cases."
Over 1,580 defendants have been charged with crimes connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, protests. Blaze News previously reported that nearly 1,000 people have pleaded guilty to Jan. 6 charges, 68% for misdemeanors and 32% for felonies. Of those who pleaded guilty to felonies, 53% were for supposedly assaulting law enforcement officers. Some of the most consequential prison sentences ranged from 10 to 22 years.
Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, told the Washington Examiner in a statement that "nothing that happened on Jan. 6 calls for a 22-year prison sentence, especially when the Biden Justice Department essentially gave amnesty to the much more deadly and destructive BLM and Antifa rioters."
"Pardoning criminals who waved Confederate flags, donned Nazi symbols, assaulted police officers, and tried to halt the democratic process would be a dangerous endorsement of political violence," continued Schumer.
This talking point has been pushed by other leftists including Joyce Vance, a senior fellow at the Soros-funded Brennan Center, who noted Friday, "Pardoning the rioters is a grotesque misuse of the pardon power because, cloaked in the appearance of lawful authority, it would put the presidential seal on crimes that go to the heart of an attack on our democracy."
Schumer, who was previously careful not to conflate violent Black Lives Matter rioters with peaceful protesters and took an entirely different approach when discussing the leftist radicals who clashed with police near the White House in June 2020, added that Trump's potential pardon of Jan. 6 protesters "is wrong. It is reckless. And it would be an insult to the memories of those who died in connection to that day."
Ahead of Kamala Harris' certification of President-elect Donald Trump's landslide victory, Schumer criticized Trump again on he Senate floor, characterizing the Jan. 6, 2021, as "one of the darkest, most shameful days in American history of our democracy" and suggesting it was unconscionable to pardon Jan. 6 protesters.
The Democratic senator later told reporters that pardoning Jan. 6 protesters "would set a terrible example for the future in America and to the world that it was okay, that it was forgivable to do this."
Schumer spared Biden from similar criticism over his controversial pardons or the examples they might set.
The Democratic president issued a "full and unconditional pardon" last month for Hunter Biden, giving him a pass on crimes committed between 2014 and 2024 and letting him off the hook for his felony conviction on gun charges and for his felony tax offenses.
When asked about Hunter Biden's pardon, Schumer told a reporter, "I've got nothing on that."
Schumer apparently also had little to nothing critical to say about Biden commuting the sentences of 37 convicts on federal death row, including cop-killers, mass killers, and murderous child rapists. Among the individuals Biden spared from the accountability pursued by judges and juries was Jorge Avila-Torrez, a "serial killer of the highest degree" who kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered two little girls, Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, in 2005; murdered 20-year-old U.S. Navy Petty Officer Amanda Jean Snell in 2009; and raped and nearly killed another woman in 2009.
There was also deafening silence from Schumer and most other Democrats when Biden commuted the sentence of a disgraced former comptroller who stole $53.7 million from her struggling Illinois city along with around the sentences of around 1,500 other convicts.
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Biden’s clemency play panders to his woke base, snubbing justice
Joe Biden, or more accurately his handlers, decided to commute the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row prisoners. This prompted Donald Trump to remark, “It makes no sense.” While Biden’s actions were indeed contemptible, they made great strategic sense for Democrats aiming to satisfy their core constituency.
The reasoning behind Biden’s decision had little to do with the partisan bromides served up by Democratic commentators like Jessica Tarlov, who frequently appears on Fox News. Tarlov claimed Biden was morally outraged by capital punishment and felt compelled to act before leaving office. Another Fox News contributor suggested that Biden, a devout Catholic, was influenced by the pope’s homilies on the sanctity of life.
It’s unclear why murderers who raped, tortured, and killed young girls were not also committing 'hate crimes.'
These explanations are transparent nonsense. Biden’s half-century career in politics flatly contradicts such claims. Unlike the pope, Biden has fanatically supported abortion, including the destruction of late-term fetuses — aka empirical human beings. His crusade for the sanctity of life stops well short of his frantic efforts to please the feminist zealots who vote overwhelmingly for his party.
During his tenure in the Senate, Biden had no qualms about supporting capital punishment. In the 1990s, he championed a crime bill that included the death penalty, back when Democrats could still publicly endorse such measures. His stance shifted only after he began courting figures like Ayanna Pressley and other prominent voices from the progressive left.
Biden’s current stance on capital punishment does not reflect a long-standing, principled defense of life. Instead, it appears to be a calculated move to appease his party’s leftist base, which often links capital punishment to systemic racism and anti-black discrimination. The handmaiden media’s portrayal of Biden as a lifelong opponent of the death penalty is blatantly misleading. He only adopted this position while campaigning for president in 2020, by which time he was trying to align with his party’s increasingly radicalized base.
One pressing question is why Biden commuted the sentences of only 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates. The media has suggested that the remaining three prisoners committed crimes more heinous than the others, despite the fact that most of the 37 were also convicted of horrific, sadistic murders. If Biden truly opposes capital punishment on principle, as his defenders insist, why would he make those three exceptions? A consistent opponent of what he considers cruel punishment would presumably have commuted the sentences of everyone on death row.
This distinction lacks any moral justification but clearly serves a political purpose. Not all commutations carried the same value for the Democratic Party. Those excluded from commutation reportedly engaged in acts of terrorism or committed “hate crimes.” Among them are Robert Bowers, a white nationalist who in 2018 killed 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh; Dylann Roof, who in 2015 murdered nine black parishioners during a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Chechen responsible for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured 264 others. All remain on death row.
Pardon me for doubting the reasons that Biden’s spokespersons gave for these exceptions. It’s unclear why murderers who raped, tortured, and killed young girls were not also committing “hate crimes.” While the Boston Marathon bombing might fit the definition of terrorism, the actions of Bowers and Roof are arguably no worse than those of some individuals whose sentences were commuted.
Allow me to suspect the worst about Biden’s exceptions in handing out commutations. Although the crimes of those who were spared may be at least as chilling and in some cases more shocking than those of Roof and Bowers, they didn’t affect to the same degree the Democrats’ attempt to hold on to certain demographics. Those crimes were committed against Hispanics or other groups that no longer count as secure Democratic constituencies. Roof’s crimes were committed against blacks, a group that still votes overwhelmingly for Biden’s party. Fifteen of the 37 criminals commuted are black.
The Jewish vote may not be as safely Democratic as it was in the past, but the tony liberal congregation in a Pittsburgh suburb targeted by Bowers is presumably heavily Democratic and includes generous contributors to Biden’s party. If the victims were politically conservative Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, one wonders whether the killer would have been left on death row.
Needless to say, all the crimes committed by the inmates on death row are loathsome, yet some of these acts have been quite arbitrarily rated as “hate crimes” while others have not. We are justified, therefore, in asking why some abominations have been treated differently from others. Like Biden’s attempted forgiveness of college student loans, I’m led to believe that this tasteless stunt was driven by narrow Democratic Party interest, nothing else.
Biden commutes sentence of serial killer who raped and murdered 2 little girls along with 36 other death row killers
President Joe Biden has granted clemency to some horrible felons but apparently saved the worst for last.
The White House announced Monday that the 82-year-old Democrat is commuting the sentences of 37 convicts on federal death row. Rather than die for ghastly crimes against children, U.S. service members, immigrants, police, prison guards, and others, the convicts will get to continue living at taxpayers' expense in prison.
Among the convicts Biden has spared from the accountability sought by judges and juries is Jorge Avila-Torrez, a "serial killer of the highest degree" who kidnapped, raped, and brutally murdered two little girls, Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, in 2005. The beneficiary of Biden's commutation not only subjected the girls to nightmarish sexual torture but stabbed them repeatedly — Hobbs 20 times, including in her eyes, and Tobias 11 times.
Avila-Torrez also murdered 20-year-old U.S. Navy Petty Officer Amanda Jean Snell in 2009 and raped and nearly killed another woman in 2009.
The man whose sentence Biden commuted ultimately shot the little girl four times, slit her throat, then dumped her body in the woods.
Biden also commuted the sentence of Thomas Sanders. A federal jury in Louisiana announced in 2014 that Sanders should be put to death for murdering Suellen Roberts and her 12-year-old daughter, Lexis Roberts, in the fall of 2010.
After two months of dating, Sanders took Suellen Roberts and her daughter on a trip over the Labor Day weekend to a wildlife park near the the Grand Canyon. On the way home, he took a deadly detour, driving his victims to a remote location in the desert, where he shot Suellen Roberts in the head in front of her daughter, then kept Lexis Roberts captive for several days.
The man whose sentence Biden commuted ultimately shot the little girl four times, slit her throat, then dumped her body in the woods, where it was later found by a hunter. According to the Justice Department, Lexis Roberts' throat was slashed with such force that the knife left marks on the inside of her spinal cord.
Iouri Mikhel was also among the names of those whose sentences Biden commuted. Mikhel, a serial killer who immigrated to the U.S. from Russia, was sentenced to death in 2007 for kidnapping and savagely murdering five people.
After kidnapping their victims, Mikhel and his comrade, Jurijus Kadamovas, reportedly extorted money from their families and friends. Despite having received millions in ransom funds, the duo killed their captives anyway, then dumped them in a reservoir near Yosemite National Park.
Daryl Lawrence, another murderer who will now avoid the death penalty, killed Columbus Police Officer Bryan Hurst during a bank robbery in 2005.
The White House's list of individuals now receiving commuted sentences is full of names of murderers convicted for similarly ghastly crimes.
Biden, a longtime champion of abortion, apparently believes the death penalty for murderous child rapists and cop killers is unconscionable, stating that the commutations were guided by his "conscience" and experience as a "public defender."
"These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder," said Biden.
In early 2021, the Biden Department of Justice halted federal executions. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated at the time, "The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely."
Trump indicated in his speech announcing his 2024 presidential campaign that he saw utility in the death penalty, particularly for drug pushers and human traffickers. Leftist activists have vowed to fight the incoming administration on the issue.
Biden noted Monday, "I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."
Despite letting dozens of murderers off easy, Biden suggested that he condemns them, "grieve[s] for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache[s] for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss."
The White House stated that "Biden has dedicated his career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system. He believes that America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder — which is why today's actions apply to all but those cases."
The three murderers who remain on death row are Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who shot up the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015; and Robert Bowers, the terrorist who executed the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in 2018.
Biden, whose approval rating is at a record low, kicked off his pardons by granting his felonious son Hunter Biden a "full and unconditional" pardon. He followed up the controversial pardon with thousands more, in one instance commuting the sentence of a disgraced former comptroller who stole $53.7 million from her struggling Illinois city.
While the backlash on the left over Biden's pardons has been mild, establishmentarians and radicals appear apoplectic over Trump's proposed pardons of peaceful Jan. 6 protesters.
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Biden Quietly Commuted Sentences Of Chinese Spies
Biden Commutes 1,500 Sentences in One Day, Shattering Record
President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 individuals and pardoned another 39, breaking the record for the largest grant of clemency in a single day, the White House announced on Thursday.
The post Biden Commutes 1,500 Sentences in One Day, Shattering Record appeared first on .
Biden Pardons 39 Criminals, Commutes Nearly 1,500 Sentences
'these actions build on the President’s record of criminal justice reform'
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