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President Joe Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, less than two weeks before his sentencing was, in my view, the right thing to do. It was an act of compassion and a practical solution to a legal case that had become hopelessly entangled in partisan politics.
But while the pardon itself may have been justified, the president's repeated and unequivocal denials that he would ever consider such a move were deeply damaging. It was obvious to anyone following the situation closely that he would eventually issue the pardon. By refusing to admit the possibility beforehand, Biden contributed to the pervasive erosion of trust in politics and politicians.
Let's first address why the pardon was the right decision. Hunter Biden's legal troubles, while serious, were not particularly extraordinary in the grand scheme of federal prosecutions. He faced charges of failing to pay taxes on time and illegally owning a firearm while struggling with addiction. While these offenses are not trivial, they hardly make him the criminal mastermind Republicans have portrayed him to be.
What set Hunter's case apart was not the nature of his crimes but the context in which they unfolded. The president's son has long been a lightning rod for partisan attacks, used as a stand-in for every baseless accusation of corruption or impropriety hurled at Joe Biden. Under such circumstances, it understandable why so many loud voices argued that the Hunter Biden proceedings were less about his actions and more about the political theater surrounding them.
There is also a historical and moral precedent for such an act of clemency. Presidents have often used pardons to temper justice with mercy, even in politically fraught circumstances. Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, though controversial at the time, is now widely seen as a necessary step to help the country move past the Watergate scandal. More recently, Barack Obama commuted the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders to rectify systemic injustices in the criminal justice system. In this context, Biden's pardon of his son can be viewed as a similarly humane and pragmatic decision.
But the decision to pardon Hunter was not purely altruistic; it was also politically astute. One of the less-discussed dynamics of this situation is the omnipresent specter of the next president—Donald Trump.
It is not hard to imagine a scenario in which Trump, returning to the presidency, could have seized on the case to embarrass the Biden family further. Imagine how much worse it would have looked if Trump had pardoned Hunter himself—gleefully painting Joe Biden as too weak or too politically impotent to protect his own son. Such a spectacle would have been far more damaging to the presidency than Biden's decision to issue the pardon himself. In some ways, Biden acted preemptively, not just to spare his son but also to avoid handing Trump yet another political cudgel.
And yet, Biden's handling of the matter was far from perfect. For months, the president publicly and unequivocally insisted that he would never pardon his son. "Hunter will be treated like any other citizen," he said repeatedly, as if this declaration alone could insulate him from criticism.
As I wrote before, these denials were, at best, implausible. From the moment charges were brought against Hunter, it was clear that his case presented a unique challenge to the president—one that would force him to weigh his responsibilities as a father against his duties as commander-in-chief. That Biden would ultimately choose to pardon his son should not have surprised anyone paying attention.
But why didn't he say so?
This pattern of denial is emblematic of a larger problem in American politics: the pervasive belief among politicians that they cannot afford to be honest with the public. Biden's repeated denials did not shield him from criticism; they only made his eventual decision appear calculated and cynical. Had he been upfront—acknowledging the extraordinary circumstances of his son's case and the difficult choices it posed—he might have turned the pardon into a moment of candor and humanity. Instead, his denials gave the impression of a leader trying to have it both ways: insisting on impartiality while preparing to act out of loyalty.
This kind of dishonesty is not unique to Biden, of course. Politicians across the ideological spectrum seem to operate on the assumption that the public cannot handle the truth. They spin, evade, and obfuscate, convinced that transparency will only make them more vulnerable.
But in doing so, they have profoundly deepened the public's cynicism and eroded trust in the institutions they are supposed to uphold. Americans are not naive. They can see through the spin, and they are tired of being treated like gullible bystanders in a political drama where the outcomes are all but predetermined.
Biden's handling of Hunter's case underscores the steep cost of this dishonesty. When leaders consistently deny what is plainly true—whether it's about pardoning a family member or addressing larger issues like climate change or economic inequality—they reinforce the perception that politics is little more than a game of manipulation.
This disillusionment has far-reaching consequences. It drives voters toward populists and demagogues who promise to "tell it like it is," even when their words are laced with lies. It fosters apathy, leaving many citizens disengaged and disenchanted. And it undermines democracy itself, which depends on a basic level of trust between leaders and the people they serve.
What the country needs now, more than ever, is leaders who are willing to level with the public—even when the truth is complicated or politically inconvenient. Americans don't expect their politicians to be perfect, but they should be able to expect them to be honest. By failing to meet that standard, Biden missed a chance to build trust at a time when trust is in desperately short supply. His pardon of Hunter was an act of mercy, but his handling of it was a reminder of just how far our politics still has to go.
About Aron Solomon
A Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, Aron Solomon, JD, is the chief strategy officer forAmplify. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the top 50 legal innovators in the world. Aron has been featured in Newsweek, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, CBS News, CNBC, USA Today, ESPN, Abogados, Today's Esquire, TechCrunch, The Hill, BuzzFeed, Venture Beat, The Independent, Fortune China, Yahoo!, ABA Journal, Law.com, The Boston Globe, and many other leading publications across the globe.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
