President Joe Biden's sweeping pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, may have given President-elect Donald Trump fresh precedent to expand his pardoning powers in his upcoming administration, according to legal experts.
"I do think this gives Trump greater leeway to exercise the pardon power in ways that he might otherwise have hesitated because it gives Trump more political cover to do what he wants," Samuel Morison, an attorney who worked in the Office of the Pardon Attorney for 13 years, told Politico. "How can you say that the president can't grant pardons to correct something that he believes is an injustice? Biden just did it."
The president's pardon order clears his son of consequences of any federal laws broken between Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 2, 2024, including his guilty plea earlier this year to federal tax charges and his conviction on gun charges.
The "full and unconditional pardon" is the broadest made by a president except for Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon. The Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney was even surprised by the pardon and its scope, a source granted anonymity to discuss the matter told Politico.
But some legal experts and former Trump associates say the Biden pardon gives Trump a new blueprint for sweeping pardons in the future.
"It certainly creates an acceptability for that model," said James Trusty, a former Trump criminal defense attorney.
He added that the use of broad pardoning could allow Trump to pardon aides Carlos De Oliveira and Walt Nauta, who are still charged with helping to obstruct the federal investigation into classified documents that were kept at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office.
"To me, that's kind of a no-brainer, and maybe out of an abundance of caution, he tracks the language of Hunter Biden's very broad pardon," Trusty said.
Trump pardoned several of his allies during his first term of office, including clemency for former national security adviser Mike Flynn, longtime adviser Roger Stone, former White House aide Steve Bannon, and his 2016 campaign chair, Paul Manafort.
The pardons, however, were linked to specific investigations rather than covering any crimes that could have been committed during a lengthy period, like the Biden pardon handles.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump promised to pardon defendants from the Jan. 6, 2021, protests, and almost as soon as the Hunter Biden pardon was announced, asked if the pardon would "include the J-6 Hostages?"
Trump had already been considering such pardons, according to testimony before the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the capitol. Just before he left office in January 2021, he was thinking about pardons for family members, staff, nonviolent Jan. 6 protesters, and potentially himself, the testimony showed.
However, he deferred to advisers, including then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and others who told the special committee that they suppressed those plans.
Meanwhile, a source close to Biden said that there was a debate in the West Wing about allowing Hunter Biden only a commutation of the sentences he was facing on the federal charges — not a full pardon — but White House spokesperson Andrew Bates insisted that such claims are false.
Some congressional Democrats are also speaking out against the extensive pardon, saying they fear the precedent it could set.
"This was an improper use of power," Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., commented. "It erodes trust in our government, and it emboldens others to bend justice to suit their interests."