Will resolve to yes if he issues any pardon or commutation of sentence.
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@nsokolsky Limit is up
My take: Biden wouldn’t want to ruin his legacy by pardoning his son on what’s clearly not a political charge (unlike Nixon getting pardoned by his former VP). He’ll probably pull the strings to get an early release but I doubt he’ll do a full pardon.
@Joshua I was wondering the same thing and then felt very unconfident that my confusion was appropriate. I haven't been following closely enough and assumed there had been some news or something.
@Joshua Hunter unexpectedly pled guilty two days ago so he could be sentenced before his dad is out of office. So obviously. It makes no sense otherwise as they didn’t even alert the prosecutor. Plus all the other obvious reasons like not having anything to lose and people have pardoned their campaign donors before so why not their son?
“This plea is not just a smart legal move,” said Anthony Coley, a former Biden Justice Department official, who pointed to elements of Hunter’s own memoir that he said had bolstered the government’s tax evasion case. “If the judge accepts it, it would spare the younger Biden from a spectacle in the court of public opinion.”
Biden pledged in June not to pardon or commute Hunter’s convictions, saying he was “satisfied” that the trial had been fair.
“I am not going to do anything,” he said on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy. “I will abide by the jury’s decision.”
On Thursday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would keep his vow in the wake of Hunter’s latest plea.
“No,” she said in response to a question about whether Biden was reconsidering at all. “It’s still no.”
Doing a 180 on all that would be an insane move that would wreck Biden's legacy and the entire Democratic party's credibility on being the party that respects the rule of law. I would have guessed this market would have been at like 5%.
@Joshua What are you talking about?!? Even Polynarket is over 20 percent. https://polymarket.com/event/will-joe-pardon-hunter-biden?tid=1725723009311
@Joshua Nothin you just quoted matters at all after the election is over. And it quotes Biden when he was still a candidate. Come on man. How did you get so rich on here??
@Joshua I disagree that pardoning Hunter would harm Biden’s legacy, at least not as much as letting his son go to prison and doing nothing about it. Nobody gives a shit Trump pardoned Steve Bannon and Paul Manafort, literally nobody is going to be mad about Hunter getting pardoned that doesn’t already think there is actually a Biden crime family.
@Joshua Like are you suggesting Democrats are gonna be like, “fuck that asshole, how could be put his son before his political donors??” 😂😂
Polymarket still thinks there's a 13% chance Biden dies or resigns before the end of his term and that there's a 3% chance the US confirms aliens exist by the end of the year.
Not going to speculate on exactly what his sentence will be, I think that requires pretty specific expertise. But if you want to trust polymarket, it thinks 65% no prison time for the gun case.
But if it is prison, Joe's not going to stoop to using the presidential pardon on a member of his own family. It'd be a comically corrupt act, straight out of an InfoWars segment.
@Joshua The tax case is more serious. Plus is a a prior offender. So prison is not avoidable. If your argument is that it won’t be for long then all the more reason it’s not a big deal to pardon him. You still haven’t told us who is going to be outraged by it that doesn’t already hate Biden and why should he give a shit about what they think??
@Joshua Like you are not updating your priors on new information. But that’s cool. You got plenty of mana to lose.
For a start I think Biden himself would be outraged at the suggestion. But in terms of politics, independent voters who say "both parties are the same" would see this as the ultimate confirmation of that hypothesis.
I've certainly updated up from my initial 5% guess but this still seems to me as less likely than his resignation, which is what he would have to immediately follow a pardon by announcing.
@Joshua Why would he have to resign to pardon Hunter? He can literally pardon anyone for anything he wants without it consequences or anyone undoing it including the Supreme Court. What are you talking about??
@Joshua If you are right about Biden caring more about how he is perceived politically than his son he is a sociopath. That is what you are describing. His political career is over, in that context you make no sense.
@datachef
> Hunter unexpectedly pled guilty two days ago so he could be sentenced before his dad is out of office.
A sentence is not a precondition for a pardon, is it? Nixon was pardoned even before any criminal prosecution
@lxgr It is not, but seems obvious he would want to know final outcome first, since no need to pardon him if he is just sentenced to house arrest. Biden needs to know his sentence is my point. It does look bad if he preempts it, but not so much if he waits to find out for certain.
@jgyou You think there is a less than 20% chance that a man with literally nothing to lose will use his singular power while he has it to save his only living son from a decade or more in prison??? I need to know why people think this is so unlikely because all of the good reasons disappeared when Biden dropped out. Plus no president has ever faced such a choice before and no doubt Biden feels at least a little bit responsible for hunter’s predicament. Now that he can’t be president anymore Hunter should be Biden’s top priority for the rest of his life. He will not be visiting him in federal prison. No fucking way.
Now, what if Biden pardons both Hunter AND Trump?? Not only would it be courageous, it would set very important precedent that could end politically motivated prosecutions once and for all by giving cover to future presidents to take similar actions.
@datachef What if he makes a deal with Kamala Harris that she pardons Hunter once she becomes president? Would be a better look.
@SamuelKnoche Why? That can only harm her ability to govern. Unnecessary baggage. Who cares what Biden looks like?? That’s my whole point. His political career is over, he has nothing to lose.
@datachef you gotta stop watching Fox, old man. He’s not facing 17 years and Joe isn’t going to throw away everything he’s worked for to save him from a brief stint and some probation. I might buy at 2% but 20% or 30% is a joke.
@jbca I hate Fox. I have no idea what that even means. This is so obvious. You are stuck in a world where there would be consequences for this, but there are none. Biden will pay no price for it at all. In fact, he stands to personally suffer if he doesn’t do it.
And how old do you think I am???
@jbca Hunter is a drug addict. Prison for any amount of time could be a death sentence. He is not some hardened criminal like Trump who could easily handle prison.