Family Conversation: WH Press Seethe to KJP Over Lying About Hunter Biden Pardon

Curtis Houck
December 9th, 2024 2:15 PM

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On Friday afternoon, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre held the first White House briefing in 15 days and the first since President Biden went back on his word of denying he’d pardon his son, Hunter. Needless to say, the press corps came prepared to express their disgust with Jean-Pierre and the President making them look like fools and undermining their aura of respect for the rule of law.

Unfortunately, Jean-Pierre wanted nothing to do with Fox’s Peter Doocy, leaving the next Doocy Time for another day.

The Associated Press’s Zeke Miller went first with the pious take about Jean-Pierre promising during her first briefing to being honest with reporters and the American people cut against what happened here. Thus, he invited her to “explain to us, the American people, really why the information that you provided turned out not to be true.”

Of course, he avoided the l-word of lying:

After that long-winded answer above, Jean-Pierre rejected both of Miller’s follow-ups on whether she feels “owed apology — an apology by the President” or one “to the American people.” 

She argued she should still be trusted in response to Miller’s final question about whether Americans “should...have confidence in anything else that you say,” but engaged in pants-on-fire chicanery by falsely claiming a poll by “USGov” showed “64 percent of the American people agree with the pardon.”

In reality, the outfit was YouGov and it was 64 percent of Democrats supporting it.

NBC’s longtime Swamp correspondent Kelly O’Donnell didn’t so much have questions as she did a talk a parent or mentor might give a child or student who did something wrong and won’t acknowledge it (click “expand”):

O’DONNELL: All of those things you laid out were known long before Thanksgiving. 

JEAN-PIERRE: Yep.

O’DONNELL: And many Americans in reflecting the 64 percent certainly understand a father’s point of view, but the President was declarative. You were declarative. You didn’t give room for depending on the outcome of the election or depending on the rhetoric coming from the potential next administration. The certainty with which the President and you portrayed the no pardon is part of where the question comes from —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

O’DONNELL: — because all the facts that you have outlined were well known in advance.

JEAN-PIERRE: And I would add there has been some circumstances that have changed this, right? Uh — Republicans not letting up, saying they won’t stop. They’re going to continue to do this. I mentioned — uh — the recent — uh — uh — Trump appointees of legal enforcement positions, right — uh — that said during the campaign they would have — uh — they — they were out for retribution and so, no reason to not take them for the word. I point to that there was a sentencing coming up, as you all know.

O’DONNELL: That was all well know.

JEAN-PIERRE: It was — I — I said there are multiple factors here, not one thing. Not one thing led to this. Multiple factors, and I think if you look at all of these, it’s a combination of reasons why the President wrestled with this over the weekend and made this decision.

O’DONNELL: Now that you’ve had time —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

O’DONNELL: — and the President has had time to absorb how the public has responded to this to think on it. Does he have any concerns about the fact that he had been so declarative and then granted this pardon, you know, it’s clearly done and many — many Americans understand as a father how he would do that — 

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

O’DONNELL: — but does he have concerns about his credibility or the impact — 

JEAN-PIERRE: You know —

O’DONNELL: — it might have on future pardons?

(....)

O’DONNELL: Yeah, but he could have reserved the right to consider it later. And — and when he’s that declarative —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

O’DONNELL: — as the President of the United States, that’s where it carries weight.

JEAN-PIERRE: And it — no, I understand, and KellyO, you know this President, you followed him during his vice presidency, right? You have covered him. When he’s asked the question directly, he answers it — uh, directly

O’DONNELL: So we are where we are. 

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

O’DONNELL: So does he regret that he had misled the public about what would eventually happen?

ABC’s MaryAlice Parks followed with a tempered question: “Has the President felt the need to respond directly to any of his Democratic colleagues around their criticism of this one?:

CNN’s M.J. Lee was another one of the most aggressive questioners about what this means for the credibility of the President:

Lee followed up: “Can you acknowledge that it may have been a mistake by the President, you to say multiple times unequivocally that he would not pardon his son?”

Once Jean-Pierre reiterates she didn’t “have anything else yet to add,” Lee continued to press by wondering if, based on Biden’s statement, he “believes in the justice system except in some cases.”

Like she did during the last briefing on November 21, Lee blasted Biden for avoiding the press during yet another foreign trip (click “expand”):

 

 

LEE: The President just got back from a multi-day trip to Angola, where he engaged the press, I think, literally one time just to quickly confirm that he was getting briefed on the situation in Korea.

JEAN-PIERRE: Yep.

LEE: His last foreign trip, it was six days in South America, as you know, he didn’t engage with reporters during that trip. After that last trip, you told us in this briefing room that he believes in the value of engaging the press. He enjoys it, you said, he will continue to engage —

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

LEE: — reporters, there will be opportunities to talk to him.

JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

LEE: So why is it that he is avoiding reporters?

JEAN-PIERRE: Look, we got — we still have 45 days left in this administration. The President does — he does believe in the free the freedom of the press, right? He believes in that. I think we have shown in the last four years, bringing back the norms of engaging with all of you — uh — we have respected that process. I hope you guys think that — uh — that we’ve tried to do the best that we can to do that, and the President is going — he does — he really does enjoy having a back and forth, and when the President, and I do want to say he did — uh — take a moment to have a back and forth with all of you when he was in Nantucket — uh — with some of your colleagues who traveled with him. He did take some questions there, so it’s not like he hasn’t taken questions at all. He did have a — a — a — a — he did do a gaggle — uh — when he was in Nantucket around the holiday and took some questions, and so, he’ll continue to do that, and look, he was really focused — uh — and many of you who’ve asked me this question — uh — he was focused on his [inaudible]. He had the G20 — the last G20. He had APEC, which was all incredibly important — wanted to focus on his engagement — uh — with — uh — uh — leaders, heads of states. He did that — uh — the trip to Africa, as you all know, was a promise that he wanted to keep and it was a great trip — uh — with very substantive discussions, and we were able again to President to show his global leadership. And so, I would say to all of you, you’ll hear — uh — you certainly will hear from him in the next 45 days.

Though Jean-Pierre wouldn’t engage and only fumbled her way through basic platitudes, Lee’s final question was biting: “Do you consider it upholding norms for the President to basically not engage the press in at least two back to back foreign trips?”

CBS’s Ed O’Keefe was at the back-end of the briefing and brought the heat, trying again on whether Biden has apologized to Jean-Pierre:

O’Keefe’s follow-up was dead on that Doocy would have probably asked: “One of the other things he often says is that voters should trust his, ‘word as a Biden.’ Should they still? This was a pretty big, defiant public pronouncement by him that he wasn’t going to do this.”

O’Keefe dropped another hammer when the previous question yielded a word salad:

He sidestepped a — a judge and a jury’s decisions on the cases involving his son. He criticized the political nature of the prosecution. The next president has spent the last several years vowing to upend the justice Department and the FBI. Looking at their current and future presidents, Why should any American continue to have confidence in the American justice system?

Jean-Pierre reemphasized Biden still believes “in the American justice system,” but O’Keefe wasn’t buying any of this nonsense and actually argued President Biden and President-Elect Trump are now at a point where they seem to hold similar views of the justice system (click “expand”):

O’KEEFE: Two leaders who —

JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, okay.

O’KEEFE: — single out incidents that involve them or their families and say — 

JEAN-PIERRE: Well, can I —

O’KEEFE: — “well, it wouldn’t be fair to me, but the rest of you should agree with it.”

JEAN-PIERRE: — I — can I — can I just be very blunt here? Uh — the situation with Hunter Biden and what the incoming president has said are very different.

O’KEEFE: But they’re making similar arguments —

JEAN-PIERRE: Well — yeah — but —

O’KEEFE: — which is that they’ve been unfairly prosecuted because of who they are.

To see the relevant transcript from the December 6 briefing, click here.

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