Joe Biden's Hunter lesson: The political high road is a mirage

How quickly we forget. On the morn of President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, there is nary a column inch about who Trump pardoned before he left office. All the pearl clutchers — elected Democrats and liberal political commentators alike – have been lamenting that Biden “lied” or “broke his promise” not to pardon his son. Meanwhile, Trump’s pardons of multiple figures who could incriminate him criminally or merely for political corruption are going unmentioned. So, let’s take a little trip down the Trump pardon memory hole:

We will start with the odious Paul Manafort. He had all kinds of connections to possible Trump crimes. Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska hired him to run his influence operation in Ukraine, which included lobbying for an accused murderer seeking investment opportunities for his corrupt company, as well as running the political campaign of Viktor Yanukovych, the corrupt Ukrainian politician who would be elected president and then ousted in a peaceful revolution. Manafort met repeatedly with a Russian GRU agent working for Deripaska, Konstantin Kilimnik, while serving as Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and even transferred Trump polling information to him. Manafort was convicted on multiple counts of bank fraud and money laundering associated with his corrupt work in Ukraine. He lied to investigators looking into Trump’s Russia ties. He had connections to Trump’s so-called foreign policy adviser, Michael Flynn, whom Trump appointed as his first national security adviser, and who was ousted from that position after serving just two weeks for lying to the FBI about his connections to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Trump pardoned Flynn, too.

He pardoned George Papadopolous, another of his so-called foreign policy advisers, who met with Russian GRU agents in London offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Papadopolous was convicted of lying to the FBI about the Trump connections to Russia.

Trump pardoned the execrable Roger Stone, who was Trump’s cut-out to the Russian intelligence computer hackers who stole Hillary Clinton’s and Democratic Party emails and published them just before the 2016 election to undercut the Clinton campaign. Stone was another Trump crony convicted of lying under oath and obstructing a congressional investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russians during his 2016 campaign.

https://www.salon.com/2024/12/03/joe-bidens-hunter-lesson-the-political-high-road-is-a-mirage/