Former President Bill Clinton recalled the pardon of his brother Roger Clinton during an interview on Wednesday, while speaking about President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden.
“I think the president had reason to believe that the nature of the crimes involved were likely to have far greater adverse effects on his son than on any normal person under the same circumstances,” Clinton said during an interview with the New York Times. York Times DealBook Summit, adding that people should look at all the facts.
Clinton then said he read it was similar to when he pardoned his half-brother, Roger Clinton, when he was president. Roger Clinton went to prison in the 1980s on cocaine charges WashingtonPostand had served his sentence before Clinton pardoned him. Roger was arrested for drunken driving almost a month after being pardoned.
According to the New York Times“Mr. Clinton said he did not believe the two situations were analogous, even as he emphasized that presidential pardons are often complicated and politically charged.”
The ex-president contrasted: “My brother spent 14 months in federal prison for something he did when he was 20, and I supported it, and he testified, told the truth about what he did when he had a drug problem and helped take down a bigger company. And they convicted him, and then he served fourteen months, and then he got out. The real question was, could he ever vote again?
Former President Bill Clinton speaks onstage during the 2024 New York Times Dealbook Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 4, 2024 in New York City. ((Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times))
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“I’m quite upset because there hasn’t been a discussion about the bigger issue: Is the pardon system that we have working?” he added, before describing the process by which someone applies for a pardon.
Clinton echoed what Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said about Hunter’s pardon. Jeffries said he understood why the president did it, but that there were many other people who deserved pardons and had received excessive sentences.
New York Times reporter and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him to respond to a piece in Politico which said: “It is a rich gift for those who want to blow up the justice system as we know it, and who claim that government is a self-dealing club for hypocritical elites. It is a promise-breaking act that subjects Biden’s allies will be humiliated again in a year filled with wounds inflicted by Biden.”
“We had a much better record than the Republicans, didn’t we? And what did we get from it? I mean, nobody believes anybody anymore,” Clinton said. “Personally, I believe the president is almost certainly right when he says his son received completely different treatment than he would have received had he not been the president’s son in these types of cases.”
Former President Bill Clinton speaks in support of Harris Walz’s presidential campaign during the Fort Valley GOTV Community Fish Fry at the Agricultural Technology Conference Center on October 13, 2024 in Fort Valley, Georgia. (Julia Beverly/Getty Images)
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Clinton said politics can’t be removed from pardon decisions when presidents are involved, adding, “I wish he hadn’t said he wasn’t going to do it.”
“I think it weakens his case,” he added.
Biden’s decision to pardon Hunter was welcomed blowback from both sides from the aisle. He accused his own Justice Department of treating Hunter unfairly.
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“Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” Biden wrote in a statement. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Department of Justice’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I watched my son be selectively and unjustly prosecuted.”
