As staunch supporters of democracy and, given Jamaica’s deep ties to the United States, we have keenly followed the unprecedented developments related to the 2024 US presidential election which unfolded on November 5.

Anyone who thought that the uncharted waters into which Americans had waded would have receded with the election now over has been proven wrong with Sunday’s press statement from President Joseph Biden that he had pardoned his son, the embattled Mr Hunter Biden.

The announcement was largely unexpected, because Mr Biden had insisted back in June this year that he would not pardon his son for his gun and tax evasion convictions or commute what was looking to be a long and painful prison sentence.

We, for our part, were not as surprised by the president’s decision, as some others were, because we had suspected that Mr Biden would be tempted to use the unusual climate surrounding the election as cover for pardoning his son.

Indeed, if we were surprised, it was by his declaration that he would not pardon him in the midst of an intense campaign by Republicans in the House to paint Mr Hunter Biden as a criminal and sully his father’s name by calling him a “member of the Biden crime family”.

In any event, it must have been pure emotional turmoil for a father, with all the power of a United States president, to face the possibility of a beloved son being imprisoned and do nothing about it.

Moreover, Mr Biden would have taken note that, as Mr Trump was about to leave the White House in 2021, he issued a series of pardons — 143 in total — for his close associates and allies who had been swept up in the multiple criminal investigations that encircled him throughout his presidential term.

Just last week Mr Trump, who is escaping possible jail for crimes he has been convicted of, indicated he would be nominating someone he had pardoned in 2021, Mr Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Mr Jared Kushner, to be ambassador to France.

The elder Kushner had been convicted of campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and witness tampering in 2005 and served two years in prison. In addition to that, Mr Trump had promised to pardon hundreds of supporters who had been jailed for storming the Capitol to keep their leader in office, after he had lost the 2020 election to Mr Biden.

Seeking to justify his action, Mr Biden said he had watched his son being selectively and unfairly prosecuted from the day he [the president] took office.

He insisted that the charges in his son’s cases “came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election… There has been an effort to break Hunter… In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

President Biden may well have been emboldened by the fact that he is leaving office and may have no consequences to face. However, Mr Trump will feel he can wield the pardon power as he sees fit, without being constrained by moral and ethical concerns.

However this matter unfolds, it is clear that the presidential pardon power has lost its noble purpose — for granting grace to people who have paid for their misdeeds — and may never regain it.