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Pardon Me, Again

The Hunter Biden pardon dominated a second news cycle, sucking up the vast majority of the oxygen. Here's a rundown of some of the more significant storylines:

• Unreliable Source: David Weiss is the special counsel who investigated and charged Hunter Biden, and yesterday he was all over the place insisting that the whole process was handled fairly and that the First Son was not singled out because of who his father is.
  
  Weiss is not exactly an unbiased source here; we've already pointed out that his handling of the gun offense and the tax cheating were both... extraordinary, if not unique. But how about we add another data point? There have been 69 people who have been appointed special counsel/independent prosecutor/whatever name was being used at the time. Do you know how many of them were tasked with investigating a private citizen, one who did not hold an appointed or elected position of any sort? One. Only David Weiss' investigation of Hunter Biden meets those criteria. That certainly suggests to us that the First Son was not treated the way an ordinary American would have been.
  
  
• Legacy: A whole lot of people yesterday had the "insightful" take that the pardon was a bad idea because it complicates/stains the President's "legacy" (see here, here and here for three examples, among many).
  
  There was no argument or talking point being made yesterday that was stupider than this one. First, presidential legacies are complicated things, and nobody can really know what will happen for a generation or more. Second, and consistent with that, Biden's legacy will not come into focus until after he's shuffled off this mortal coil. Third, any person who would let their last remaining son rot in prison for a few years in service of some amorphous concept like "legacy" is an a**hole. Joe Biden has his weaknesses, but he is clearly not an a**hole.
  
  
• Democrats Gone Wild: A great many Democrats, particularly in the Senate, took Biden to task yesterday for issuing the pardon. Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) were particularly outspoken.
  
  Forgive us for our ongoing bluntness today, but these people need to shut their pieholes. From a human standpoint, if they would do the exact same thing in Biden's place, then they are hypocrites for presuming to criticize him. And if they would not do the same thing, and would let their own kid go to prison under highly questionable circumstances, then they are jerks. From a political standpoint, a bunch of Democrats taking "principled" stands is not going to change anyone's mind on whether or not the Democratic Party is corrupt. All it's going to do is give further oxygen to right-wing talking points.
  
  
• Ch-Ch-Changes: Another common refrain yesterday was "Biden said he wasn't going to pardon his son, and then he did. Argh!"
  
  In some cases, the critic believes that Biden was lying when he made his previous promises not to issue a pardon. We tend to doubt this. Joe Biden is a veteran politician, and knows how to thread the needle so he can give the answer people want to hear without actually committing himself. Remember, for example, how carefully he handled the questions back in 2020 about whether or not he would run for a second term. If he really knew he was going to issue a pardon (or was likely to issue a pardon) all along, he would have hedged his bets more.
  
  Other critics don't think he was lying, but they do believe he changed his mind, and they don't like that kind of... indecisiveness, we guess? Truth be told, at least as far back as the John Kerry election, we've never really understood this notion that a "leader" has to pick a position and stick with it, no matter what. In what other line of work is it not preferable to adapt one's thinking when one is presented with new information? Sure, if you change positions so often that people think you are a weathervane—like, say, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)—then it's just vulgar opportunism. But beyond that, isn't it preferable to have a leader who's open to re-examining their thinking? Suppose the CEO of General Motors said: Our company was founded making gasoline-powered cars and that's who we are and we're never going to go for this new-fangled electric car-thingie. Nope. We have our principles. How would the board of directors react?
  
  Our guess is that is what happened here. In particular, do you think it's a coincidence that the pardon came the same weekend as the Kash Patel story? Donald Trump made it very clear that he was serious, and he was going to staff the Justice establishment with score-settlers, who care little for such niceties as the Constitution. It is entirely plausible to us that Biden could tolerate the idea of leaving his son's fate in the hands of Pam Bondi, but that once Patel entered the equation, it was a bridge too far.
  
  
• Paging Gerald Ford: Customarily, presidential pardons are pretty specific in their terms. A person is being pardoned for [specific crime X] or their punishment is being altered to [reduced punishment Y]. The Hunter Biden pardon, by contrast, is both broad and unspecific, clearing the First Son of any wrongdoing for any federal offense he might have committed over a roughly 10-year period, from 2014 to 2024. Betsy Woodruff Swan, writing for Politico, points out that there's really only one other pardon like this—the one that Gerald Ford issued to Richard Nixon.
  
  For those who are convinced that the President has committed some great offense against the American way of life, the breadth of the pardon deepens the extent of his "crime." For us, however, the clear message here is that Biden really was concerned about the Trump administration targeting his son, very possibly on Trumped-up charges if the existing charges (the gun offense, the tax cheating) had been wiped off the ledger.
  
  
• A Fair Point: When Biden issued the pardon, he made a big point of noting that while he was stepping in to save his son, he otherwise has great confidence in the American justice system. Alexandra Gibbs, also writing for Politico, observes that the President's words and his actions are incongruous. Even if he (or anyone else) says "Well, it's just that you can't trust the Justice Department under Donald Trump," that's nonetheless an assertion that something at the DoJ is broken. That, in turn, gives momentum to folks who think the whole system needs an overhaul. Some of those folks think this means there is a two-tiered system of justice, and that the nation needs to work towards more equitable outcomes. Others of those folks, by contrast, think that the DoJ is a deeply corrupted instrument of the Deep State, and that it needs to be blown up and its focus redirected toward the "real" enemies of the nation. It is the latter faction that is about to be ascendant in the federal government, incidentally.
  
  
• Another Fair Point: Speaking of a two-tiered justice system, there is little question that Hunter Biden got different treatment than "Hunter Jones" would have gotten. There is also little question that there are plenty of people in federal prisons who were treated even more unfairly than the First Son was. Slate's Mark Joseph Stern advises the President that he should spend some fair chunk of the balance of his term wielding the pardon baton, so as to correct for injustices not involving people named "Biden." To take one example, there are about 40 people on federal death row. The President says he opposes capital punishment, both as a Catholic and as a politician. He could commute all of those sentences to life imprisonment, meaning those folks would still not be a danger to society, but they also would not be in danger of being executed. The next president will work hard to get all 40 killed ASAP, having done a similar thing during his last term.
  
  In case you are wondering, Biden is not the least generous user of the pardon power, but he's not far off. Here's how often the 10 presidents prior to him wielded this particular tool:
  
  

  President	Pardons	Commutations	Other	Total
  Donald Trump	143	94	0	237
  Barack Obama	212	1,715	0	1,927
  George W. Bush	189	11	0	200
  Bill Clinton	396	61	2	459
  George H.W. Bush	74	3	0	77
  Ronald Reagan	393	13	0	406
  Jimmy Carter	534	29	3	566
  Gerald Ford	382	22	5	409
  Richard Nixon	863	60	3	926
  Lyndon B. Johnson	960	226	1	1,187

  
  
  "Other" refers to remissions (waivers of financial penalties) and respites (temporary reprieves usually granted for medical reasons).
  
  Thus far, Biden has issued 25 pardons and 77 commutations, for a total of 102. So, he's only outpacing the elder Bush. Well, unless you count the blanket pardon Biden granted to those convicted of marijuana possession. That adds 6,500 more pardons to his total, and makes him the all-time pardon king (leaving even Franklin D. Roosevelt, with 3,796 pardons, commutations, and other considerations, in the dust).

And that's the rundown for today. We're in touch, so you'll be in touch. (Z)

Trump Gets an Early Christmas Grift

This story might be more significant than the Hunter Biden pardon. In fact, it may be WAY more significant. And yet, it's getting a tiny fraction of the attention. We will leave it to readers to decide for themselves why that might be (for our part, we can think of numerous possibilities).

This weekend, we had a question about whether or not Donald Trump would be able to skim a million dollars here, and a million dollars there, from the federal budget. Our answer was that it would be difficult and risky, and that there are better ways for him to enrich himself, using his outside businesses. It took a grand total of 48 hours before we got an object lesson in exactly how he might do that.

Recall that the Trump family recently got into the crypto game, with a project called World Liberty Financial (WLF). It is hard to call WLF a business, because the crypto it sells is currently not "currency." The only thing that you get if you buy it is the right to vote when decisions are made about WLF. And that is not likely to change anytime soon, or maybe ever, making WLF a rather poor "investment."

In view of this, WLF hasn't been doing too well, and looked like it might be headed for the same graveyard as Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, etc. However, over the weekend, it got a huge "investment" from Justin Sun, who is a crypto entrepreneur (and a Chinese national, incidentally). Here is Sun announcing his new purchase:

We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial @worldlibertyfi as its largest investor. The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to @realDonaldTrump! TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation. Let's go!

Sun is generally trying to cultivate an image as a wild and crazy guy who might do something unpredictable at any time—sort of a Richard Branson on steroids. Readers may have seen the story about the "investor" who bought an artwork composed of a banana duct-taped to a wall for $6.2 million a little over a week ago? Well, the buyer was Sun, and he promptly ate the banana. This used to be called conspicuous consumption. It brings to mind the potlatches practiced by some Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. People would spend hundreds of hours making intricate blankets and other items and then they would ceremonially burn them (or give them away) as a statement of: "I am so rich I can afford to lose this valuable property."

Turning back to WLF, let us now point out how the venture is structured. Under the terms of incorporation, the first $30 million in income goes into the bank for operating costs. Thereafter, 75% of all income goes right to the Trumps. Prior to Sun's "investment," WLF's take was $22 million. Add in the Sun money, subtract the "into the bank" money, and calculate 75% of the residue, and the upshot is that Sun just gave the Trumps a $16.5 million holiday bonus. Or, if you prefer, a $16.5 million bribe.

Now, what might Sun be interested in here? Maybe he's a MAGA True Believer and just wants to support the movement. Or maybe this is part of his public branding as a wacky guy who does wacky things. Or possibly this is some lobbying on behalf of the Chinese government, so as to influence the President-elect's thinking about tariffs. Or maybe, just maybe, Sun is worried about the fact that he's been charged with securities fraud by the SEC, and he could sure use a friend who could help him out with that. Sun says he's not looking for anything in exchange for his "investment." If you believe that, then please do contact us, because we have a banana we'd like to sell you. At only $2 million, it's a bargain compared to what some other bananas are going for. You do have to provide your own duct tape and wall, however (although we do have a used roll of tape available for $2,500).

In any case, are we crazy in thinking that the incoming president taking what appears to be a $16.5 million bribe is a much bigger story than the outgoing president letting his kid off the hook? Heck, even the banana art story has gotten more coverage than the WLF "investment." (Z)

And Then There Was One

At the outset of last week, there were three House seats still up in the air. Now, the total is one, and even that one is probably just a day or two from being decided.

The first seat among the trio to be resolved was the one in CA-45. Democratic challenger Derek Tran is up by about 600 votes, and Rep. Michelle Steel (R) concluded that there was no circumstance under which that gap would be erased. The fact that all the major outlets had called the seat for Tran probably helped bring some clarity to her thinking. In any event, she has conceded.

Next up was the seat representing IA-01. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) was up by just 801 votes when the initial counting was concluded, so challenger Christina Bohannon asked for a recount. As we have noted many times, the votes that change during a recount are almost exclusively leaner non-votes that become votes and leaner votes that become non-votes. Barring some systematic problem with the ballot design, or the voting process, it's basically a series of coin flips. And one candidate is not going to win 800 more coin flips than the other. In fact, once all was said and done, Bohannon picked up... three votes. So, Miller-Meeks is now your official winner.

That means that the only seat that is still unresolved is CA-13, where Rep. John Duarte (R) is trailing Adam Gray by 143 votes out of a little over 310,000 cast. The good news for Duarte is that, over the weekend, he gained ground on Gray, picking up about 80 votes. The bad news is that time is running out. The only remaining ballots are ones that need to be "cured," and volunteers for both campaigns spent the Thanksgiving weekend knocking on doors trying to reach the casters of those ballots. After so much effort has already been expended, the Duarte camp is not likely to be able to find another 143 uncured voters, especially since the deadline for certifying the results is supposed to be today. So, this one is almost certainly going to go to the Democrat Gray.

Assuming Gray does hold on, then there will be 220 Republicans in the House and 215 Democrats. And even if Gray stumbles at the finish line, there will be 214 members of the blue team. Interestingly, and we have not seen anyone who has pointed this out, either way it means the Democrats will have more members in the 119th House than they had at any time during the meeting of the 118th House. In the 118th, the Democrats largely alternated between having 212 and 213 members, dropping to 211 on one occasion for about a month (from the death of Bill Pascrell on Aug. 21, 2024, until the seating of LaMonica McIver as the replacement for Donald Payne on Sept. 18, 2024).

Meanwhile, the Republican Conference in the 118th House started at 222 members, dropped as low as 217 members, and mostly hovered around 219-220 members. Assuming Gray wins, then the 119th House will have 220 Republican members. So, the cat herding will be just a bit harder this time than it was last time (because more Democrats, same number of Republicans). And, of course, the moment the 119th House convenes, 3 Republicans will vanish, as Matt Gaetz' resignation becomes official, and Elise Stefanik and Mike Waltz will depart for jobs in the Trump administration. So, Speaker Mike Johnson will start with a 217-215 "advantage." As we have pointed out, that will mean that every Republican member will have a veto for the next several months, as long as the Democrats stay united. Good luck with that, Mike (and keep reading). (Z)

Will Mike Johnson Be Able to Herd the House Cats?

As we note, the current score on the House is 214 D, 220 R, with CA-13 still hanging in the balance, but likely to go Democratic, for a final tally of 215 D, 220 R. Subtract the three exiting GOP members, and it's 215 D, 217 R. With a 1-vote margin of error, at least for the first 100 days or so, it means that Mike Johnson will get to deal with 217 Joe Manchins.

Most House Republicans will follow Johnson's orders, but most doesn't do the job. All does the job. There are at least five groups and things Johnson will have to worry about, and some of them will be issues even beyond the three special elections that will return his majority to 220-215. Here is a brief rundown of the lay of the land:

• The Freedom Caucus: These folks are extremely right wing and also want deep cuts in government spending, especially in areas they don't like. For the first 100 days any one of them could torpedo any of Donald Trump's plans. Even with a 220-215 House, it would take only three votes to kill budget and other bills. Three hard-line Republicans on the House Rules Committee, Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Ralph Norman (SC) and Chip Roy (TX), have often killed bills they didn't like in committee in the past. Now they will have the power to kill bills from all committees by voting with the Democrats against them. They are not likely to give up this power without a fight, and Johnson can't threaten them with removal from that Committee (which would cause the FC to go bonkers and move to vacate the chair).
  
  
• The SALT Caucus: Republicans from high-tax states like California, New Jersey, and New York want to expand the state and local tax (SALT) deduction from the $10,000 set in the 2017 tax cut law. Trump revels in the limit because it selectively punishes well-off suburban voters, many of whom have become Democrats. The problem for Johnson is that it now takes only one member from a SALT-y district to throw sand in the gears. Threats of a primary from the right are essentially threats to hand the seat to the Democrats, which could lead to a Democratic majority in Jan. 2027. Neither Trump nor Johnson wants that, so these people will probably need to be placated. But raising the SALT cap will mean a bigger budget deficit, something the Freedom Caucus is wildly opposed to. Republican Reps. Young Kim (CA), Mike Lawler (NY), and Jeff Van Drew (NJ) are going to lead the SALT march.
  
  
• The Ambition Caucus: Quite a number of Republican representatives are planning to run for higher office in 2026. For example, Kevin Hern (OK) and Byron Donalds (FL) are likely to run for the governor's mansion in their respective states. Members don't have to resign to run, but once they have announced, they will be out on the campaign trail a lot and may miss many votes. With only 220 votes, if five Republicans miss the vote, then it goes down (of course, some Democrats may also seek higher office, balancing things out somewhat). It also matters where the missing representatives are from. Someone running for office in Virginia can pop back for a vote more easily than someone from Oklahoma.
  
  
• The Defense Hawk Caucus: Some House Republicans have not drunk the Kool-Aid and still oppose Vladimir Putin and Godless Communism. They do not want Putin to take over Ukraine and will insist on including funding for Ukraine in the budget (in part because they know the money is actually spent in the U.S. by giving orders to defense contractors to produce weapons for Ukraine). They could refuse to vote for a budget that does not include money for Ukraine. In particular, the incoming chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), is a noted defense hawk. He is a supporter of aid for Ukraine and there is no easy way around him.
  
  
• The Deficit Caucus: A number of conservative House members oppose growing the federal deficit. They want it to be smaller. They think just borrowing money is unsustainable. Of course, they keep voting for tax cuts for rich people, which just increases the deficit. But then they can argue spending has to be cut. Any bill that has the effect of increasing the deficit is going to get close scrutiny from them. A project to round up and deport millions of people, for example, will be very, very expensive, and this bunch of skinflints won't like the fiscal impact and might demand major cuts elsewhere in the budget to finance the deportations.
  
  
• The Actuarial Caucus: Three members of the 118th Congress died during the 2-year stretch. There will be 13 members of the new Congress older than 80. Luckily for Johnson, the majority of those are Democrats. Still, even a serious illness that keeps a member away for weeks could be a problem when the margins are so small.
  

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was one of the greatest cat herders in the past century. We may soon find out if Johnson's skills can match hers. (V)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Day 2: Gifts for Kamala Harris

Oops, we accidentally did this out of order. It was supposed to be Kamala Harris first, then Donald Trump. Oh, well. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are half a dozen reader suggestions for what Santa should bring the VP this year:

• K.P. in San Jose, CA: A month of pure joy, and a plate full of crispy latkes on Christmas night.
  
  
• L.S.-H. in Naarden, The Netherlands:
  
  
  
  
• A.J.C. in Williamsburg, VA: This is so easy! Kamala needs only one thing! A blanket presidential pardon signed by Joe Biden. In fact, I think that's the only gift that Joe should be giving to everyone on his Christmas list this year. He needs to make sure that everyone who worked in his administration has one, especially the ones with big public profiles. We absolutely can't trust that the 2nd Trump administration won't be going after the opposition. And while Joe's at it, he should definitely give one to Hunter. I wish I could complete my Christmas gifting this easily! Pardons for everyone!
  
  
• Z.K. in New York City, NY: A slate of faithless electors.
  
  
• D.E. in Lancaster, PA: A lifetime supply of personalized stationery with the words "I told you so!" emblazoned on it.
  
  
• K.B. in Edgewater, NJ:
  
  
  
  

Tomorrow, it is Joe Biden, followed by J.D. Vance, and then Mike Johnson. There is still time, if readers have suggestions. (Z)

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