Democrat Senator Slams Biden for Issuing ‘Middle of the Night’ Pardons

Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Sunday blasted President Joe Biden for pardoning his son and issuing other dubious commutations.

In an interview with CBS host Margaret Brennan, the Democrat said she was uncomfortable with Biden’s recent pardons, which included a judge involved in a financial scheme involving children and a man who committed tax fraud worth more than a billion dollars.

“There’s also a man in Duluth that was running a major drug house, basically, and had all this money under his bathroom tiles [who] was also commuted,” the senator from Minnesota said on Face the Nation.

“I also didn’t agree with the pardon of the president’s son. I also have not agreed with a number of pardons that President Trump gave.”

She called for a radical overhaul of the system that sees presidents interfere with legal cases, with the case of Hunter Biden, who became the first child of a US president in office to receive a criminal conviction, proving to be especially problematic.

“While the pardon ability is part of our Constitution, we’re not going to change that. It goes way back to President Lincoln, who made hard decisions himself about deserters from the army, things like that. That’s been going on a long time, but we should have some kind of an outside board that governors have.”

“Governors have the ability to give mercy to people after years have gone by, but a lot of them have boards that make recommendations and other things, instead of people just doing it in the middle of the night and people in the White House. This makes no sense to me.”

She said that while there may be “righteous” pardons in the batches presented by Joe Biden, the process needed to be overhauled.

“I think that this whole process cries out for reform, because otherwise you undermine the justice system. And again, I emphasize this also happened in a big way under President Trump, and you undermine the work of these line FBI agents, these line prosecutors who have taken on these cases, followed the sentencing guidelines and made a decision.”

“Might you want mercy 10 years later? Yes, you might. But let’s at least look at these on a factual basis and a risk basis, instead of just in the middle of the night a month before a president leaves.”

The White House has defended the president’s pardons and commutations, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters that Hunter was pardoned because opponents would “continue to go after his son.”

Alongside a conviction for lying about drug use on a form when buying a gun in Delaware, Hunter Biden also pleaded guilty to federal tax charges.

The president said that in the case of commutations that many had “shown that they deserve a second chance.”