Charlamagne tha God had a simple message for Democrats after President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter this weekend: admit you don’t have the moral high ground.
The radio host, 46, whose real name is Lenard Larry McKelvey, supported Kamala Harris for president over Donald Trump. But that didn’t stop him from raking his preferred party over the coals.
‘I just want Democrats to stop acting like they are on this moral high ground politically, when they have shown us they’re not,’ said the host of The Breakfast Club.Â
‘You know, whether it’s skipping the primary process when Biden stepped down to things like Biden pardoning his son. Stop acting like y’all are the pure party and Republicans aren’t,’ he added.
Biden’s rationale for the pardon, which will protect Hunter from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, was to shield his son from what he said was a selective and unfair prosecution.
‘From the day I took office, I said I 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,’ Biden said in a statement.Â
‘No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because is my son – and that is wrong,’ he continued.
Charlamagne disagreed completely, saying: ‘Hunter was singled out because he broke the law. That’s number one. He was singled out because he had his illegal gun and tax evasion charges, not because he was the president’s son.’
‘And it also shows me elected officials can do whatever they want as long as they have the political will and courage to do it,’ he added.
Hunter was convicted in June of lying on a federal government form to buy a gun and also possessing the firearm while abusing drugs. In September, he pleaded guilty to nine felony tax evasion charges.
He was facing 25 years in prison for the gun charges and 17 years for the tax charges, though it was likely he would have served far less than that based on federal sentencing guidelines.
Now it’s guaranteed that Hunter won’t spend a day in prison for these crimes.Â
Critics claimed the broadly written pardon was an attempt to cover-up his actions on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
That’s because Hunter joined the board of Burisma in 2014, the exact year Biden stretched the pardon to cover.
Hunter was paid millions for his role in the company despite not having a background in the gas or energy industries.
In 2023, DailyMail.com exclusively revealed the younger Biden helped coordinate a plan with Democrat strategists to ‘close down any cases’ against the owner of allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas firm and ‘gain intelligence’ on the country’s top prosecutor’s office.
The emails bolster claims by ex-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin that the First Son and his then-Vice President dad conspired to kill Shokin’s criminal investigation of Burisma.
Another aspect of the controversy is Biden’s complete reversal on granting his son a reprieve.
Biden said as recently as June that he would ‘not pardon’ his son, unlike Trump who has outright said he wants to pardon January 6 rioters.
The White House has also repeatedly denied a pardon was coming.
Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, was grilled by journalists aboard Air Force One since she said several weeks ago that a pardon or clemency for Hunter was out of the question.
Jean-Pierre insisted that the president was a truthful man who only reached his decision at the weekend, as he said in his Sunday statement.
‘First of all, one of the things that the president always believes is to be truthful to the American people,’ she said. ‘That is something that he always truly believes.’
Trump’s immediate response to the shock move by Biden was to suggest he may pardon the remaining people who were convicted of rioting at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.Â
‘Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!’ Trump wrote.
Even other prominent members of Biden’s own party criticized him, including Colorado Governor Jared Polis.
‘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,’ Polis wrote.
‘This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.’
Congressman Greg Stanton, a Democrat from Arizona, said that while he respects the president, Biden ‘got this one wrong.’
‘This wasn’t a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers,’ Stanton wrote on X.Â
