More than 1,200 readers responded to our poll. Here’s why many said President Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter, was “hypocritical.” The post ‘A president can’t put his own family above the law’: Why readers disagree with Biden’s decision to pardon his son appeared first on Boston.

The possibility that the pardon could backfire on the first family could impart new life to efforts by congressional Republicans — now the majority — to investigate the Biden family for their business dealings. That subject led to the opening of an impeachment inquiry against the 46th president that stalled.

While controversy over presidential pardons has a long history — from George Washington absolving instigators of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1795 to Gerald Ford pardoning Richard M. Nixon after the Watergate scandal forced his resignation — few have used the constitutionally vested power to pardon family members.