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Last week, President Biden granted his son, Hunter Biden, “a full and unconditional” pardon for any and all offenses from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024. Because Hunter Biden has been a politically charged figure since the first Trump term, and because President Biden repeatedly promised that he would not use his power to protect his son, the presidential pardon was, for many, a strategic and moral mistake — an act of hypocrisy, in short.

In this week’s episode, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic question the assumptions that Biden’s critics are making. Is political hypocrisy inevitable? Might it actually be a good thing? Shadi has written extensively on the topic of hypocrisy, defending it in a unique way. Damir pushes back against Shadi’s moral interpretation of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not primarily a failure to live up to one’s morals, says Damir, but the failure of a powerful figure to live up to their morals. “Biden’s problem is that he did it [the pardon] so visibly,” says Damir.

The conversation progresses to a discussion of the how Islam and Christianity deal with hypocrisy. It becomes a discussion about hypocrisy and international justice, where Damir asks whether international law can be said to exist if it cannot be universally enforced. Perhaps, Damir suggests, Shadi is less of an advocate for international human rights as he is a booster of American imperialism. It’s a classic Shadi-and-Damir give-and-take.

In our bonus portion for paid subscribers, Shadi and Damir discuss whether the Department of Justice is ever truly independent of partisan politics, and explore an alternative history where the Democrats never pursued the Russiagate investigations against Donald Trump.

Required Reading:

* “Biden pardons his son, Hunter, after repeatedly saying he would not” (Reuters).

* Shadi: “Can Hypocrisy Be Justified?” (WoC).

* Shadi: “Why America Needs Hypocrisy” (WoC).

* King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.

* “ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova (International Criminal Court).

* “Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I rejects the State of Israel’s challenges to jurisdiction and issues warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant” (International Criminal Court).

* Jason Willick post (X).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

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