The Chaser Report - Biden Pardons Biden

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Dom runs John and Lachlan through Hunter Biden's pardon, and what it could mean for the future of Presidential clemency powers. How will Donald Trump make use of this precedent set by Joe Biden, and how soon will America's economy rely on a pay-for-pardon model? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser. Today, alongside me, Dom, we have producer Loughlin stepping back behind his microphone and the editor of the Chaser, John Delmenico, to get stuck into the big story of the day, gentlemen, or a couple of days ago anyway, Joe Biden has decided to pardon his son, Hunter. Look, he's nearing the end of his presidency and he's just gone. No, it doesn't matter.

let's give the guy, not just a pardon for the things he's been charged with, but for anything that he's done in the past 10 years. It's really one of the best Christmas presents from a daddy ever, I think you'd have to agree. It's gentle parenting to a new level. Only the last 10 years? I think Hunter Biden's going to be a bit disappointed. What about what Hunter Biden was doing in sixth grade? Has he been forgiven for those as well?

Yeah, you probably should have backed out of it all the way through to birth as well. And that's a lovely thing. I mean, it's so hard to know what to get a kid these days for, for, Christmas. And he's just a great dad and a great granddad. And the surprise to me is that he hasn't pardoned more Biden. Because Fox News tells me that there's some sort of Biden crime family thing going on. So really, Joe, get on it.

Of course it tells you that there's a Biden crime family. But you'll never hear about it because they've all been pardoned. That's right. No, I'd say that anymore. Let's get stuck into, anyway, this is quite interesting example of modern parenting after these ads. All right. So look, the day's top parenting story, really. What do you do, guys, when your son, your errant wayward son, a little bit of a lad, a little bit of a rascal. I don't know. He, let's just choose some running examples. He manages to translate your role as US Vice President into an extremely lucrative job in Ukraine, which he apparently wasn't in any way qualified. Sounds like he has the ultimate qualification in politics. Yeah, that's right.

Well, George Bush had exactly the same qualification and he made it all the way to president. Something involving firearms happened, a whole bunch of other stuff as well. Joe Biden has forgiven just anything that Hunter's done, whether we know about it or not, for about the past 10 years, I think up until the day of the pardon, just blanket. And this is because he says the Republicans have been very unfair in targeting his son, that he wouldn't have got any kind of conviction

for a first offense and all that kind of stuff. Exactly the kinds of arguments, by the way, that were being made about Donald Trump. Trump, who now will face no consequences for any of his things. So I guess Joe Biden's position is if Donald Trump's facing no consequences whatsoever for all the things he did, why should Hunter Biden? And therefore, we now know who the Democratic candidate in 2028 will be, step forward, Hunter Biden.

You said that he's given the pardon because he believes Hunter was unfairly targeted. Are we sure that Joe Biden didn't just go, well, I can't remember anything my son's done for the last 10 years and neither should the law possibly another hypothesis is Hunter said Daddy can you sign

this Christmas card but there's quite a lot of stuff here so he lied about it's a little bit of a cascading thing this he lied about his drug use on a federal form to apply to own a firearm

really two strikes there one lying about the drug use and two why the fuck does he want a firearm why do you need to apply for a firearm I know this is America I know that's outrageous actually how did the application place

for the that. I don't know much about Hunter Biden, but I know that he is famous for his drug use. Yes, indeed. That's true, actually. Who was the person who saw the form went, oh, this guy's legit? We all know that if you want to get a gun, you just go to a gun show. There's a loophole. We all know this, right? Like, it's easy. Hunter, what's the... Oh, he was high. I thought if you wanted a gun, you go to a bank and you start a new account there. That's right. There are those banks that give away free guns with the account. Yes, indeed. Also, he did have his own legal loophole, the legal loophole of his father being the president.

Don't you know who my dad is? I do love the reasoning of there's no way he would have been convicted in a court of law. So there's no point letting him go to a court of law. You're so confident in his innocence that you won't let him prove his innocence? That's right. I mean, his dad said that it was a miscarriage of justice. And the way that the judicial system works, and I studied law guys, is the best person to judge that as a dad. I'm pretty sure you can be like the father.

of someone on the jury as well, can't you? Or at least, if you're Biden, you can. You absolutely can. Actually, if you're Scott Morrison, I think you can be all 12 members of the jury. So there were nine federal tax charges, all this stuff. But a few awkward things about this. Just, you know, not that I want to criticize a dad for dadding. You know, he's probably going to be on Hamish Blake's acclaimed podcast,

how dad's dad sometimes soon. But, yeah, the small point is Joe Biden promised not to do this, explicitly promised not to pardon Hunter. And also it sets a terrible precedent. You're about to get a guy in Donald Trump who has been known to use the pardon power already to pardon relatives. He pardoned Charles Kushner, Jared's daddy. Do either of you remember what Charles Kushner needed a pardon for, by the way? No, I've got no idea.

And do you recall this one? It's a rather sordid tale. No. So anyway, there was some family tensions. You know how these billionaire families go, right? There was some sort of property deal involving Charles Kushner's sister, and they had a fight. I can't remember all the details. So basically, the way that Charles decided he was going to win the argument with his sister,

this is, you know, what brothers do. He hired a prostitute, you know, as you do, to have sex with his sister's husband, just stand his stuff, got her to video it, and then showed it to his sister. Oh, like a normal thing to do. Yeah. It's like every Christmas dinner, I mean, admittedly it would have been Hanukkah dinner for them, But you're sitting around and who amongst us is not videoed a member of our family having sex with a sex worker in order to use it as a tool. Was it an effective coercion technique?

Because my brother's been really annoying me this year. And I'm just wondering, did this work out well for Kushner? Well, I mean, not in the sense that he had to go to prison. So there's no consequences. Yeah. So Charles Krishna went to prison. And the prosecutor, because the world is a small place, Chris Christie, would you believe? He said it was one of the most loathsome and disgusting crimes that he'd ever seen.

Okay, but that's not the kind of thing that you actually go to jail for. What you go to jail for is lying on a government form about drug's 11 days. That's right. And so Charles Kushner is now the ambassador-designate to France. And I must say, to be fair, of all the countries to send Charles Kushner, France does make us, yeah, look, it's a certain Junis-Sé-Quire. That is very French. Marriage vows and such things are a little bit more fluid there.

So that's the standard. So if Donald Trump's response was quite wild, he was outraged by this move, he called her to complete miscarriage of justice, do you know what his main complaint was? Do you want to take a guess? Was it that he wasn't forgiven as well? Was it kind of from a mentality of, oh, Joe, if you're just going to forgive everyone, give some of that to me?

Why don't you figure of your old pal? I've been nothing but nice to you, Joe, sleepy Joe. Wasn't that he, wasn't that the drugs didn't go to his children? Donald Trump Jr. could have got on that great use, but instead it went to Hunter Biden. The two of them could have got. Surely Don Jr. and Hunter must have somehow at some nightclub somewhere been in the same cubicle. There's just a whole thing about, didn't the Fox News people write letters of recommendation for Hunter Biden at university? I didn't know that. That's fascinating.

I think it was like the main guy. Oh, okay. Tucker. If I remember right, I was talking Carlson. Tucker? A look at the time Tucker Carlson asked Hunter Biden for a favour.

So other way around? Oh, it's the other way around, yeah. That's hilarious. Hunter Biden wrote it. This came out because there's a whole feud between like Kyle Rittenhouse, Kyle Rittenhouse's lawyer, and Sucker Carlson had a three-way argument.

They also are putting out the information they had on each other. I don't want to think about Tucker Carlson having a three-way, please, John. They all know each other. Isn't that extraordinary? They all know each other in the American elite. It's amazing.

No, so Donald Trump's response, it was about himself, and I'm sure internally he was like, oh, wait till I, you know, day one sweet pardon for myself. I'm sure he would, why would he need a pardon? He didn't do anything wrong. That's true. No, well, you know who else didn't do anything wrong? I'm quoting Donald Trump here on Truth Social. Does the pardon given, I won't do the impression. No, I've got to, you know, I like my Trump impression, but I've got to do it.

It makes me go husky. Does the pardon given by Joe DeHunter include the J6 hostages who've now been in prison for years, such an abuse and miscarriage of justice? No, no, it doesn't. It strangely doesn't include a pardon for the people who tried to overthrow both the election and the US government, Donald Trump. That was Hunter's a mistake. He didn't take the gun to the Capitol. Yes, that's true.

That's absolutely true. So that's where we are with the whole pardon thing. And it just makes you think, like, what's Donald Trump going to do? And I'll ask you after these ads, actually, what do you think Donald Trump is going to do on day one with the pardon power that he'll have access to? Because honestly, you can crime up. up so many crimes with the powers that he has. The Chaser Report. More news.

Less often. Okay, guys, so we know two things. We know that basically Joe Biden's now gone, yeah, pardon whoever you want. Pardon your son, doesn't matter. There are no rules. Give a blanket pardon for 10 years. Like, Donald Trump should give himself a pardon

for like the next thousand years of different lifetimes or whatever. It doesn't matter. And everyone he ever meets. You should have like a stick that anyone who touches with a stick gets a pardon. Or like those documents that go uncons. classified. He just has to think you're pardoned and then they get pardoned. He needs a pardon orb. A glowing pardon orb. He should get Monopoly, get our jail free cards and just sign them and hand them out to people so they've got a preemptive pardon. That would be a very good idea.

So that's point one and point two is that we already know that there's two things that the Department of Justice won't prosecute a sitting president. So he's got four years of basically do whatever the hell you like. The other thing is the Supreme Court has already interpreted that the US president has enormous abilities to do whatever they want, essentially. King under his own right? Pretty much a king, yeah, temporary king status. So what's Tom Trump going to do for four years

of King status, kill, whoever you want? Is he just going to go and kill people like he said he was going to in Fifth Avenue? I think he was bringing back classic beheadings. Go full old school king with it. Just have a grand old time. I think that is a brilliant idea. In fact, Jared Kushner, who's such good mates with the Saudis.

You know, they do beheadings with a sword. In Saudi Arabia. One place in the world, I think, that still uses a sword to cut people's heads off. He could become secretary of the Department of Beheadings. He could.

And I felt like a cousin to doge the Department of Government of Beheadings. They could somehow link down him with WWE, right? I mean, wouldn't it be amazing if in the middle of WWE there was a beheading? It's sort of like the next level.

No, the problem is never believable. You can always tell that someone's faking it when they've had their head cut off in the WWE. I think it would be great only because Logan Paul is W. WWE wrestler now, and he's really good at filming with dead bodies in the background.

That's true. Anything good happened, Dom. I think we've got to realize that Trump's always been a businessman. Yes. He's going to give out pardons. He's going to make a business out of it. And I've just pulled up the part of the Constitution where it says that, where it explains the president's clemency powers.

And it does not say anything about him taking sweet under the table cash deals on who he gives pardons to. Why under the table? Doesn't need to be under the table? Why not over the table? Why not as an FTA? He could just pardon himself anyway if there was a problem. Yes, that's true.

Actually, you're absolutely right. If there was anything legally wrong with it, he could just change it. No, I'm imagining, you know those amazing NFTs that he sells of himself, like with ripping a shirt off and there's an American flag? Yeah. I reckon they should come with a free pardon. Or if you buy a pair of Donald Trump's, he also sells shoes and watches. And Bibles.

And Bibles and Bibles. Yeah, no, he should just have it so that whenever you buy one, it comes with that free, you get to commit one federal crime. Yes. And maybe the more you buy, the more it exponentially increases on what you can do. Are we going to take this all the way to the very nerdy reference that it's essentially religious indulgences, like the whole thing that started the Reformation? No, we're not going to do that.

That's too nerdy? Okay. Why wouldn't we go to Chaucer? I'm happy to go to Martin Luther if that's where we need to. Oh, my God. Yep. It's the diet of worms, people. All right.

Wow. I've got a great idea for what Trump could do. What's that? The man's a showman. He hasn't had a reality TV show in a while. Who wants a pardon? Judge Donnie. America's next top pardon.

Yes. Yeah. The people's court. Yeah, no, I can really see him doing that. And basically, just having an auction to see who wants to bid the most for a pardon. I mean, anything can happen in America now. The only real question for me at this point is, Will he leave in four years as he's supposed to?

Like he's got carte blanche for four years. The one thing he's not really supposed to do is stay for longer. But there might be ways around that. It might be loopholes. Well, I think he's going to take a leaf out of Lord and Savior Rupert Murdoch's book. Remember when Rupert Murdoch tried to retire sort of in the middle of last year? Yes. And how he stepped down into a higher position.

There was no chairman of emeritus at news. So maybe Trump will become the. President Emeritus. Is that a position? It doesn't matter. It will be soon. It will be soon. Now, that's a wonderful idea. That's kind of what they, that's kind of what Putin did in a way. He was president for a while, but there was a limit in the Constitution. So he became prime minister for a bit. And then he was still really the president and went back to being president again. And then I think he's got rid of the limit because constitutions and rules, stupid stuff. That's why they're having all these phone calls. The first thing that Trump did

was he got in the phone to Russia and he went, hey, Vlad, how do I, how do I, how do I, how do I, find this four-year loophole that you so delicately pulled? I must say, they're thinking about it. I mean, there have always been questions, and I know that the Republicans go nuts about this stuff, but Hunter Biden, Ukraine, Burisma deal and all that sort of stuff. I mean, they've always accused Joe Biden of getting kickbacks from that. Like, that's something that anyone in the Magistphere,

they all accuse, you know, they talk about the Biden crime family and all that kind of stuff. I'm just kind of hoping, given what I think is coming, that Joe Biden did actually get untold millions of dollars from that deal because he might need it to buy a pardon from Donald Trump. I think that's the only way he's going to stay out of jail after January the 20th. We're in for a completely wild ride. Will a few million be enough?

No, surely Donald will give him a mate's rate after all they've been through. Yeah, they sat once awkwardly by a fireplace. That's got to be worth something. Thank you, guys. We'll catch you tomorrow. We're part of the Iconiclass Network and we'll catch you next time.