A Conversation with Miles Carter and Claude (Anthropic AI)
The Pardon Was Supposed to Be a Safety Net.
Now It’s an Escape Hatch.
Biden pardoning his son was understandable. It was also indefensible. And what came next was something structurally different — and far more dangerous.
April 3, 2026 · Reviewed by Grok, Gemini & ChatGPT
Teaser: The pardon power was designed for mercy — a release valve for cases where the law produced an unjust outcome. This week we trace how it became something else entirely: a tool for protecting the politically connected from the consequences of their own choices — and why Congress has been silent about it on both sides.
Miles
I want to understand the pardon power — and specifically why Joe Biden pardoned his son. This feels like such a conflict of interest, and it sets such a dangerous precedent, that the only fix I can see is Congress passing a law that limits when a president can use it. Historically, pardons were used to correct an injustice or show mercy. They were a last resort — a safety net beneath the judicial system, not a way around it. I’m not sure exactly when it changed, but has the pardon power always been abused the way it has been in the last ten years? Biden pardoning Hunter feels like it removed the last guardrail. Now family members can commit crimes and escape accountability. I understand why he did it — to protect his son from what he believed would be revenge prosecution. But Hunter did commit crimes. As the son of a vice president and then a president, he made his bed. Even if he was caught up in a political battle, two wrongs don’t make a right. How did we get here?
Claude
You’ve landed on the most uncomfortable truth about the Biden pardon — that it was simultaneously understandable and indefensible. And that tension is exactly why it matters so much.
The pardon power is in Article II of the Constitution — absolute, unreviewable, and intentionally so. The founders gave it to the president as a check on the judiciary, a release valve for cases where the law produced an unjust outcome. It was designed for mercy, not protection. For correcting the system’s failures, not insulating the powerful from the system’s reach.
For most of American history it was used exactly that way. Ford pardoning Nixon was controversial but framed as national healing. Carter pardoning Vietnam draft evaders was divisive but grounded in mercy toward ordinary people. Even Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich — genuinely corrupt, issued on his last day — was a singular scandal that shocked the political class precisely because it felt like an exception.
What Changed — And When
Trump’s first term accelerated the normalization of the pardon as a political tool. Roger Stone. Paul Manafort. Michael Flynn. These were not cases of mercy for the powerless. These were pardons for political associates convicted of crimes connected to Trump’s own political operation. The pardon power was used to protect the people who protected him. That set a template.
Biden’s pardon of Hunter was different in character but equally damaging in precedent. Hunter Biden was convicted on real charges — lying on a federal firearms form and failing to pay more than a million dollars in taxes. While some argued the prosecution was influenced by political pressure and that the original plea deal was improperly collapsed, the convictions that resulted were reached through the proper legal system. These were personal crimes, not fabricated ones.
Biden’s stated justification was the fear of revenge prosecution under a new administration. That fear was not irrational. But pardoning Hunter didn’t correct an injustice — it removed the consequence of a legitimate verdict. The pardon was also unusually broad — covering all federal offenses from January 2014 through December 2024, raising questions about what else it may have shielded beyond the known convictions. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and a jury’s finding is not a wrong simply because the political environment around it was hostile.
And the precedent that sets is the one you named precisely. If a president can pardon a family member convicted of crimes on the way out the door, the protection available to presidential families becomes nearly unlimited. The deterrent effect of accountability disappears. The message sent is that proximity to power is its own form of immunity — which is the precise opposite of what the rule of law is supposed to guarantee.
Now place that alongside what came next. On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned approximately 1,500 January 6th defendants — a group that ranged from those convicted of misdemeanor trespassing to others convicted of serious felonies including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. These cases had been fully adjudicated through the legal system. Not individual acts of mercy reviewed case by case. A blanket erasure of an entire category of legal outcomes connected directly to Trump’s own political history.
That begins to look less like the pardon power as a release valve for injustice and more like the pardon power as a tool for rewriting the political record. And the silence from Congress on both sides tells you everything about how willing the institution is to restrain a power both parties have now found useful.
Miles
The evolution of the pardon power has to stop. What was once a safety net from the judicial system has become a tool to dodge accountability. The current administration has abused it openly and without shame — pardoning political associates, donors, cabinet members, and in the case of January 6th, followers who were at minimum guilty of trespassing on federal property. That brings me to Congress. I think if a president pardons a family member, a donor, a cabinet member, a campaign manager — anyone where there is a reasonable conflict of interest — that pardon should have to go through Congress or the Senate for approval. That way, if it is a true act of mercy and justice, we can see it and validate it. And if it is a conflict of interest, it will require more than one person to decide that. Multiple sets of eyes on power — that’s how the system was supposed to work.
Claude
What you’re describing is not without precedent in constitutional debate. It is actually the conversation the founders expected to happen — and didn’t finish.
The pardon power was debated at the Constitutional Convention. George Mason argued that a president might use it to protect co-conspirators in crimes he himself was involved in. Edmund Randolph raised the same concern. Alexander Hamilton ultimately won the argument for an absolute, unreviewable pardon power — reasoning that mercy required a single decisive hand, and that congressional involvement would politicize the process. Hamilton was not wrong about the risk. But he was writing before political parties had calcified into permanent opposing teams, before campaign finance had created financial ecosystems of mutual obligation between donors and officeholders, and before the presidency had accumulated the power it holds today.
The assumption underlying Hamilton’s argument was that a president would be a person of sufficient character that self-restraint would serve as the check that law did not provide. That assumption has now been tested to breaking point — by both parties.
What a Congressional Review Mechanism Would Look Like
A president retains full pardon authority for cases with no political connection — ordinary citizens, genuine injustice, mercy for the powerless. That is the original intent and should be preserved.
But when a pardon involves a family member, a campaign donor, a cabinet member, a political associate, or anyone whose relationship to the president creates a reasonable appearance of self-interest — that pardon would require ratification by a supermajority of the Senate before taking effect.
The burden of proof shifts. Instead of the pardon being automatic and unreviewable, the president must make the case that this act of mercy serves justice rather than self-protection. And a body of elected officials — accountable to their own constituents — must agree.
This would likely require a constitutional amendment rather than simple legislation — the Supreme Court has interpreted the pardon power as absolute within its scope. But the amendment process exists precisely for moments when the founders’ assumptions prove insufficient.
Here is why this matters beyond the immediate cases. The pardon power in its current form creates a structural incentive for criminality among the politically connected. If you are close enough to a president, your legal exposure is functionally limited by the president’s willingness to protect you. That transforms the legal system from a universal constraint into a selective one — applying fully to the powerless and partially to the powerful.
The Biden pardon of Hunter was a father protecting a son. Human. Comprehensible. Also a president using the most powerful legal tool in the executive arsenal to override a jury’s legitimate verdict.
The Trump pardons of January 6th defendants and political associates represent something structurally different — not a single act of personal loyalty but a systematic use of the pardon power to insulate an entire political operation from legal consequence.
What Two Administrations Have Now Established Together
Across two administrations and two parties, the pardon power will be used for political protection when a president judges it necessary. Once that norm is established, it does not retreat. It expands.
Congress has been silent on both sides — because both sides have now used the pardon in ways they would prefer not to have scrutinized too closely. That silence is not accidental.
Your instinct about congressional review is the right one. The question is whether Congress has the institutional courage to restrain a power that both parties have now demonstrated they find useful. The silence on that question is the loudest thing in the room.
Sources & Notes
1. U.S. Constitution — Article II, Section 2, Pardon Clause
2. The Federalist No. 74 — Alexander Hamilton on the pardon power, 1788
3. Constitutional Convention records — George Mason and Edmund Randolph debate on pardon power, 1787
4. U.S. Department of Justice — Hunter Biden conviction records, federal gun and tax charges, 2024
5. White House — Biden pardon of Hunter Biden, December 2024
6. White House — Trump pardons of January 6th defendants, January 20, 2025
7. Trump first-term pardons — Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, official DOJ records
8. Congressional Research Service — Presidential pardon power: scope, history, and limitations, updated 2024
9. Supreme Court — Ex parte Garland (1867) establishing absolute scope of pardon power
10. New York Times / Washington Post — reporting on Biden pardon rationale and political context, December 2024
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