N.J. Senator-elect Andy Kim says Hunter Biden’s pardon feeds assumption that ‘well-connected play by a different set of rules’
Andy Kim, who heads to the U.S. Senate in January, said he was “disappointed” by President Joe Biden’s decision.
U.S. Rep. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) is disappointed that President Joe Biden decided to pardon his son Hunter Biden, the soon-to-be senator said Monday, one day after Biden’s pardon became public.
Biden had repeatedly said he would not pardon his son, who faced a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions. But as he reversed course Sunday night, Biden argued that the charges against his son were politically motivated.
Kim said he believes that Biden’s pardon “only feeds into this harmful assumption that the well-off and well-connected play by a different set of rules.” Kim, who is headed to the U.S. Senate in January, has made a name for himself working outside of the Democratic machine.
“I hear from so many people right now in New Jersey and elsewhere that politics is just an insiders’ game, benefiting the few over the American people’s everyday needs,” Kim continued. “ ... While as a dad I can sympathize with President Biden’s family, as a citizen, I am disappointed in his decision.”
But U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, a Democrat who represents Philadelphia, said he believes the pardon is “appropriate.”
“I hope it paves the way for pardons for other appropriate non-violent federal offenders as well, including lower-level drug offenders,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a progressive Democrat who represents Pittsburgh, also said she hopes Biden uses his power to pardon those outside of his family. Lee posted on X that while she believes it is true that the president’s son “faced harsh sentencing (and) unfair treatment ... so do thousands of others, disproportionately Black folks.”
Lee shared an article published by The Appeal about an effort she’s part of along with 60 lawmakers calling for Biden to grant clemency to who she described as “the elderly, the chronically ill, those on death row, (and) others facing injustice.”
U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R., Pa.) and Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R., Pa.) spoke out against Biden’s decision on Monday, also in posts on X.
Perry said that the “Radical Left corruption knows no bounds,” while Reschenthaler said that Biden’s “crime family’s time in public office ends in 50 days — and it can’t come soon enough.”
Other members of the Pennsylvania delegation were largely quiet on social media Monday and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.