With just two weeks remaining until the presidential election, former President Donald Trump has used his most recent appearances on podcast, and cable interviews, to escalate attacks on fellow Americans whom he calls “the enemy from within. In one recent interview he said if “radical left lunatics” disrupt the election, “it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, the National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
“Since 2022, when he began preparing for the presidential campaign, Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents.
A review of his rally speeches, press conferences, interviews and social media posts shows that the former president has repeatedly indicated that he would use federal law enforcement as part of a campaign to exact “retribution: Vice President Kamala Harris, he says, “should be impeached and prosecuted,”. He will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America – Joe Biden – and the entire Biden household, crime family”.
Not done, “Liz 9 Cheney is guilty of treason”, he declared, without any sense of inhibition, whilst against all professional ethics, he promised to send to jail, all journalists who refuse to disclose their sources of information”-Tom Dreisbach in a Newsweek article.
Nowhere in my preparation for this article did I find blame for Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, ascribed to Trump.
For me, however, I would love to see that father, anywhere on terra firma who, with both eyes open, and his senses fully functioning who would, for purposes of political correctness, foolishly hand over his own son to both a rampaging Trump, and his, wait for it: a fast emerging occultic – government in which loyalty would be sworn by all, to Donald Trump, rather than to the U.S constitution.
In the meantime, the same Trump is sparing no effort in ensuring that only his dyed-in the wool loyalists are in charge of both the FBI and the DOJ. That done, it will be guaranteed that Hunter Biden would be jailed far in excess of the 25 years constitutionally prescribed for his two offences – one gun related, and the other, failure to pay tax.
Who, in America today, would then be able to stop a steam rolling President Trump who the Supreme court has already granted an almost limitless immunity? Certainly not any individual or any organ of state.
I, therefore, salute President Biden’s courage in the face of what was sure to be an uproarious push back because in my Yoruba neck of wood, it is a common saying that no matter how bad a child is, you do not turn him/ her over to a lion.
Even as you read this, some elected Democrats, in both Houses, out of the fear of Trump and his MAGA colony, have since joined in calling Biden names.
That is their ‘toro’, as Nigeria’s former President Obasanjo would say.
They zero in on Biden’s many promises not to interfere in the case, or grant Hunter pardon, forgetting that when he made those undertakings, he was the candidate of the Democratic party, and never believed he would not beat Trump a second time at the polls and, indeed, that in a civilised America, a convicted felon could ever defeat the candidate of the Democratic party, no matter who that was.
We should slso not forget Biden’s justification, which can hardly be wholly disputed.
He put that as follows:
“Hunter was selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) only because he is my son. No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than that he was singled out only because he is my son, and that is patently wrong.”
Americans can, as usual, whine all they like. In fact, BBC has gone to town already trying to ascertain the level of support for, or otherwise, by Americans for the decision, but truth be told, what percentage of Americans are now not afraid of their in -coming President who never shirks telling them how completely unrestrained, he would be, this time around.
Who would dare question him, a Democratic party beaten blue and black, on November 5?
Welcome then Trump Unlimited!
So enervating already, is Trump 11, that Biden and his senior aides are already mulling some preemptive pardons for people who might be targeted by the incoming Trump administration.
Possible beneficiaries include: current and former officials such as retired Gen. Mark Milley, former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, Sen-elect Adam Schiff – who already refused such -, special prosecutor Jack Smith and, even Dr. Anthony Fauci.
What then is all the hullabaloo about?President Joe Biden had on Sunday, 1 December, 2024 granted his son, Hunter, a sweeping Pardon which covers, not only his convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California, but also any other “offenses against the United States, which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in, during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”
Questions have been asked as to whether Biden broke any laws by this action. And the answer is a categorical no, as Biden is in no way the first president to pardon people close to him.
What’s a pardon, anyway?
The U.S. Constitution provides that a president has the power to grant clemency, which includes both pardons, and commutations.
A pardon forgives federal criminal offenses while a commutation reduces penalties, but is not as sweeping. The power has its roots in English law: “the king could grant mercy to anyone”, and the practice was carried to the colonies. The U.S. presidential pardon authority is very broad and presidents use it a lot: Donald Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in office, among them one to his daughter’s father -in – law, Charles Kushner(tax evasion and retaliating against a federal witness — his brother-in-law),
former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort (Bank and tax fraud)and Republican operative, Roger Stone(lying to Congress on the Russian involvement in the 2016 election).
Barack Obama, on his own, granted clemency 1,927 times in his eight years, including one to a blood relation.
In support of President Biden’s position that Hunter was prosecuted because of who he is – and please remember that the Republcan- controlled Congress was excessively eager to, and finally, took him through a grinding, highly adversarial hearing, I wish to conclude this piece as follows, relying, in addition, on the views of Eric Holder who served as Attorney – General under both the Obama and Biden administration.
Holder wrote in a social media post that no U.S. attorney “would have charged this case given the underlying facts,” and that “had his name been Joe Smith, the resolution would have been fundamentally, and more fairly — a declination” to prosecute.
“U. S prosecutors, he went on, have broad discretion when deciding whether to bring cases and are governed by departmental guidelines. But such decisions are subject to a wide range of factors that determine whether they opt to charge, to seek an agreement or to drop the matter altogether, even when there is some evidence of criminality.
The prosecution of the younger Mr. Biden on gun charges was relatively rare.
Few people fitting his profile, he continued: a first-time, nonviolent offender accused of lying on a federal firearms application, who never used the gun to commit a crime — get serious prison time for the offenses charged in the indictment, according to former and current officials”.
“He held onto the gun, a Colt Cobra .38, for less than two weeks, five years ago. When officials with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reviewed Hunter Biden’s gun application several years ago, they believed the case most likely would have been dropped if the offender were a lesser-known person, because the gun had not been used in any crime and because Mr. Biden had taken steps to get and stay sober, according to a former law enforcement official familiar with the situation”.
I rest my case in support of President Biden, believing that he acted as any reasonable father would have.
On a final note, I wish to state, very categorically, that seeing what former President Donald Trump has made of all stages of the American judiciary, I would, without any hesitation, prefer the Nigerian judiary, wats and all, to America’s.
