In Pardoning His Son, Biden Echoes Some of Trump’s Complaints
PETER BAKER拜登总统，摄于上周。尽管拜登本人和助手多次表示他不会这么做，但他还是决定动用行政赦免的特殊权力，撤销其子在枪支和税务方面受到的指控。Tom Brenner for The New York TimesPresident Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized.拜登总统和候任总统特朗普现在在一件事上达成了共识：拜登政府的司法部已经被政治化了。In pardoning his son Hunter Biden on Sunday night, the incumbent president sounded a lot like his successor by complaining about selective prosecution and political pressure, questioning the fairness of a system that Mr. Biden had until now long defended.周日晚在赦免儿子亨特·拜登时，这位现任总统听起来很像他的继任者，他抱怨选择性的检控和政治压力，质疑拜登此前一直捍卫的司法制度的公正。“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Mr. Biden said in a statement announcing the pardon. “Here’s the truth,” he added. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”“任何一个理性的人，只要看过亨特案的事实，就会得出这样的结论，亨特之所以被单独挑出来，只是因为他是我的儿子——而这样做是不对的，”拜登在宣布赦免的声明中说。“这是事实，”他还说。“我相信司法系统，但在我努力解决这个问题的同时，我也相信赤裸裸的政治已经感染了这一程序，并导致了司法不公。”Mr. Biden’s decision to use the extraordinary power of executive clemency to wipe out his son’s convictions on gun and tax charges came despite repeated statements by him and his aides that he would not do so. Just this past summer, after his son was convicted at trial, the president rejected the idea of a pardon and said that “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process.” The statement he issued on Sunday night made clear he did not accept the outcome or respect the process.尽管拜登本人和助手多次表示他不会这么做，他还是决定动用行政赦免的特殊权力，撤销其子在枪支和税务方面的指控。就在刚刚过去的夏天，他的儿子在审判中被定罪后，总统否认有赦免的想法，并表示“我将接受此案的结果，并将继续尊重司法程序”。他在周日晚上发表的声明表明，他不接受这个结果，也不尊重司法程序。The pardon and Mr. Biden’s stated rationale for granting it will inevitably muddy the political waters as Mr. Trump prepares to take office with plans to use the Justice Department and F.B.I. to pursue “retribution” against his political adversaries. Mr. Trump has long argued that the justice system has been “weaponized” against him and that he is the victim of selective prosecution, much the way Mr. Biden has now said his son was.在特朗普准备上任、计划利用司法部和联邦调查局对政治对手进行“报复”之际，拜登的赦免和他所陈述的赦免理由将不可避免地制造更混乱的政治局面。特朗普长期以来一直辩称，为了对付他，司法系统已经被“武器化”，他是选择性起诉的受害者，就像拜登现在说他的儿子一样。Their arguments are, of course, different in important respects. Mr. Trump contends that the two indictments against him by Mr. Biden’s Justice Department amounted to a partisan witch hunt targeting the sitting president’s main rival. Mr. Biden did not explicitly accuse the Justice Department of being biased against his family, but suggested that it was influenced by Republican politicians who have waged a long public campaign assailing Hunter Biden.当然，他们的论点在一些重要方面有所不同。特朗普声称，拜登政府的司法部对他的两宗起诉相当于针对现任总统的主要竞争对手的党派政治迫害。拜登没有明确指责司法部对他的家人存有偏见，但暗示司法部受到了共和党政客的影响，这些政客发起了一场长期运动，攻击亨特·拜登。As it happens, the Justice Department has rejected both accusations. The prosecutions of Mr. Trump and the younger Mr. Biden were each handled by separate special counsels appointed specifically to insulate the cases from politics, and senior department officials have denied that politics entered the equation against either man. There is no evidence that Mr. Biden had any involvement in Mr. Trump’s cases.司法部对双方的这种指责都予以否认。对特朗普和亨特·拜登的起诉分别由专门任命的特别检察官处理，目的是使案件不受政治影响。国务院高级官员否认在两人的案件中存在政治考量。没有证据表明拜登介入了特朗普的案件。
周五，美国总统乔·拜登与家人在马萨诸塞州南塔基特，他身后是亨特·拜登。Pete Marovich for The New York Times
But Mr. Biden’s pardon will make it harder for Democrats to defend the integrity of the Justice Department and stand against Mr. Trump’s unapologetic plans to use it for political purposes even as he seeks to install Kash Patel, an adviser who has vowed to “come after” the president-elect’s enemies, as the next director of the F.B.I. It will also be harder for Democrats to criticize Mr. Trump for his prolific use of the pardon power to absolve friends and allies, some of whom could have been witnesses against him in previous investigations.但是，拜登的赦免会让民主党人更难捍卫司法部的公正，也更难抵制特朗普毫不掩饰地将司法部用于政治目的的计划——他甚至正在试图任命卡什·帕特尔为下一任联邦调查局局长，这名顾问发誓要“追究”候任总统的敌人。民主党人也更难批评特朗普大量使用赦免权来赦免朋友和盟友，其中一些人本可能在之前的调查中成为对他不利的证人。“While as a father I certainly understand President @JoeBiden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, wrote on social media. “This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”“作为一名父亲，我当然理解拜登总统希望通过赦免他的儿子来帮助他的本能愿望，但我对他把家人置于国家之上感到失望，”民主党人、科罗拉多州州长贾里德·波利斯在社交媒体上写道。“这是一个糟糕的先例，可能会被以后的总统滥用，并将遗憾地玷污他的声誉。”Representative Greg Stanton, Democrat of Arizona, disputed the president’s argument that politics was behind his son’s prosecution. “I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong,” he said online. “This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”亚利桑那州民主党众议员格雷格·斯坦顿反驳了总统关于他儿子被起诉背后存在政治因素的说法。“我尊重拜登总统，但我认为他这次错了，”他在网上说。“这不是出于政治动机的起诉。亨特犯了重罪，并被普通公民组成的陪审团定罪。Other Democrats tried to draw a distinction between the Biden and Trump matters. Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that no prosecutor would have brought the charges against Hunter Biden and that therefore the pardon was warranted.其他民主党人试图将拜登和特朗普的问题区分开来。前司法部长小埃里克·H·霍尔德表示，没有检察官会对亨特·拜登发起公诉，因此赦免是合理的。“Ask yourself a vastly more important question,” he wrote on social media. “Do you really think Kash Patel is qualified to lead the world’s preeminent law enforcement investigative organization? Obvious answer: hell no.”“问问你自己一个重要得多的问题，”他在社交媒体上写道。“你真的认为卡什·帕特尔有资格领导举世闻名的执法调查组织吗？答案显而易见：绝对不可能。To be sure, the cases against Mr. Trump and the younger Mr. Biden are hardly comparable. Mr. Trump was charged with illegally trying to overturn an election that he lost so that he could hold on to power and, in a separate indictment, with endangering national security and trying to obstruct justice by taking classified documents when he left office and refusing to return them. Those cases are now being dropped because of his election.平心而论，特朗普和亨特·拜登的案件几乎没有可比性。特朗普被指控用非法手段试图推翻他输掉的选举，以便能继续掌权，而在另一份起诉书中，他被控危及国家安全，在卸任时拿走机密文件并拒绝归还，试图妨碍司法公正。这些案件现在因为他的当选而被撤销。Hunter Biden was convicted of lying on a firearms application form about his drug addiction and pleaded guilty to failing to pay taxes that he later did pay, with penalties. At least some legal experts have agreed with the president’s contention that such offenses would normally have been resolved without felony charges.亨特·拜登因在枪支申请表上就他的毒瘾撒谎而被定罪，并且因逃税而认罪，但后来他缴纳了税款，并被处以罚款。至少一些法律专家同意总统的观点，即此类罪行通常会在没有重罪指控的情况下结案。But the president broke his own commitment about intervening in the case. In his statement, he noted that he had said he would “not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” He did not acknowledge that he did not keep his word about forgoing a pardon.但总统违背了自己不干预此案的承诺。他在声明中指出，他说过他“不会干预司法部的决策，我信守诺言，尽管我看到我的儿子被选择性地、不公平地起诉”。他不承认自己没有遵守放弃赦免的诺言。Mr. Trump wasted little time seizing on the pardon to make apples-and-oranges comparisons. “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years?” he wrote on social media, referring to the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop Congress from certifying Mr. Trump’s defeat. “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!”特朗普立即抓住这次赦免的机会，拿来与风马牛不相及的事情进行比较。他在社交媒体上写道：“乔对亨特的赦免是否包括现在已经被监禁多年的J-6人质？”他指的是2021年1月6日为阻止国会认证特朗普败选而冲击国会大厦的暴徒。“真是滥用司法、徇私枉法！”
亨特·拜登今年9月承认了九项联邦税务指控，而在此之前，他曾在6月份因与枪支有关的重罪指控而被定罪。Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times
Mr. Biden’s pardon will also give ammunition to Republicans who have contended that Hunter Biden was guilty of wrongdoing beyond the charges for which he was actually prosecuted. A House Republican investigation made clear that the president’s son traded on his father’s name in business, but never proved that the elder Mr. Biden took action as vice president or president to benefit Hunter.拜登的赦免也将为共和党人提供口实，他们认为亨特·拜登的不法行为超出了他实际被起诉的指控。众议院共和党人的一项调查清楚地表明，总统的儿子在商业上利用了父亲的名字，但从未证明拜登在担任副总统或总统期间采取了有利于亨特的行动。The pardon Mr. Biden issued to his son specifically covers any offenses “which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024,” not just the tax and gun charges. That will protect Hunter Biden from any further investigation that Mr. Trump could have ordered the Justice Department or Mr. Patel’s F.B.I. to conduct once taking office.拜登对儿子发布的特赦令明确界定了范围是“在2014年1月1日至2024年12月1日期间，他犯下或可能犯下或参与的任何罪行”，而不仅仅是税收和枪支指控。这将保护亨特·拜登免受特朗普上任后可能命令司法部或帕特尔领导的联邦调查局所做的进一步调查。But Republicans seized on it to say that the unlimited decade-long sweep of the pardon demonstrated that there must be more there to protect him from.但共和党人抓住了这一点，声称长达十年的无限制赦免表明，他一定有更多问题，需要被保护。“The charges Hunter faced were just the tip of the iceberg in the blatant corruption that President Biden and the Biden Crime Family have lied about to the American people,” said Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican committee chairman who led the G.O.P. investigation. “It’s unfortunate that, rather than come clean about their decades of wrongdoing, President Biden and his family continue to do everything they can to avoid accountability.”“亨特面临的指控只是拜登总统和拜登犯罪家族公然腐败、向美国人民撒谎的冰山一角，”领导共和党调查的共和党委员会主席、肯塔基州众议员詹姆斯·科默说。“令人遗憾的是，拜登总统及其家族并没有坦白他们几十年来的不法行为，而是继续竭尽所能逃避责任。”Some Republicans even imagined ways the pardon could help any future investigation of the outgoing president. David M. Friedman, a longtime Trump lawyer who served as ambassador to Israel in his first term, suggested online that Hunter Biden could now be compelled to testify about matters for which he no longer faces potential criminal liability.一些共和党人甚至设想，这次赦免对未来对即将离任的拜登总统的任何调查可能有什么帮助。长期担任特朗普律师的戴维·弗里德曼曾在特朗普的第一个任期内担任驻以色列大使，他在网上表示，亨特·拜登现在可能会被迫就一些他不再面临潜在刑事责任的事情作证。“This means that Hunter cannot plead the Fifth if asked about his business dealings with Ukraine and China, including his Dad’s involvement, because, with his pardon, he has no risk of criminal jeopardy,” Mr. Friedman wrote.“这意味着，如果被问及亨特与乌克兰和中国的商业往来，包括他父亲的参与，他不能援引第五修正案，因为得到赦免后，他就没有刑事危险了，”弗里德曼写道。Other presidents have used the pardon power on their way out of office to help people close to them. President George H.W. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and other colleagues on charges stemming from the Iran-contra affair. President Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger on old drug charges.其他总统也曾在卸任时使用赦免权来帮助与他们关系密切的人。乔治·H·W·布什总统赦免了前国防部长卡斯帕·温伯格和其他与伊朗门事件有关的同事。比尔·克林顿总统赦免了弟弟罗杰的毒品旧案。And of course, the vast majority of Mr. Trump’s pardons and commutations went to people he knew personally or was connected to through allies, according to studies. Among the people he pardoned in his last weeks in office was Charles Kushner, the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who spent two years in prison on tax evasion and other charges. Over the weekend, Mr. Trump announced that he would now nominate the pardoned Mr. Kushner to be ambassador to France.研究显示，特朗普的绝大多数赦免和减刑则都给了他本人认识的人，或者通过盟友联系的人。在任期的最后几周，他赦免了他的女婿贾里德·库什纳的父亲查尔斯·库什纳，后者因逃税和其他指控被判入狱两年。周末，特朗普宣布，他将提名已获赦免的库什纳担任美国驻法国大使。In his pardon statement, Mr. Biden sought to appeal to empathy for a father of a son who struggled with drug addiction, framing his decision in personal terms as Hunter faced possibly years in prison. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision,” he wrote.在赦免声明中，拜登试图唤起外界对一位父亲的同情，他的儿子曾与毒瘾作斗争，在亨特可能面临数年牢狱之灾的情况下，他以个人角度阐述了自己的决定。“我希望美国人能理解为什么一位父亲和一位总统会做出这样的决定，”他写道。If he had left it at that, that might have been one thing. But it was his attack on the prosecution that raised questions of a dual-track justice system. “There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” the president said. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”如果他就此打住，那也许是一回事。但他对检察机关的攻击令人质疑司法制度的双轨性。“一直有人在试图让亨特垮下来——他已经戒瘾五年半了，尽管面临着无情的攻击和选择性检控，”总统说。“他们想整垮亨特，他们想整垮我——没有理由相信他们会就此罢休。该适可而止了。”Except that it will not stop here. Even some supporters of Mr. Biden said his decision opened the door for Mr. Trump to further warp the system by pointing to his predecessor’s own words and actions. Former Representative Joe Walsh, a leading anti-Trump Republican from Illinois who endorsed Mr. Biden for president, said the pardon was “deflating.”但一切不会就此停止。就连拜登的一些支持者也表示，拜登的决定为特朗普打开了一扇门，让特朗普得以揪住前任的言行，进一步扭曲这个体制。支持拜登竞选总统的伊利诺伊州主要反特朗普共和党人、前众议员乔·沃尔什表示，赦免令他感到“泄气”。“This just furthers the cynicism that people have about politics,” he said on MSNBC, “and that cynicism strengthens Trump because Trump can just say: ‘I’m not a unique threat. Everybody does this. If I do something for my kid, my son-in-law, look, Joe Biden does the same thing.’ I get it, but this was a selfish move by Biden which politically only strengthens Trump.”“这只会加深人们对政治的冷嘲热讽态度，”他在MSNBC上说，“而这种冷嘲热讽会助长特朗普的气焰，因为特朗普可以说：‘我不是一个独一无二的威胁。所有人都这么做。如果我为我的孩子，我的女婿做点什么，你看，乔·拜登也做了同样的事情。’我能理解，但这是拜登的自私行为，只会在政治上增强特朗普的力量。”
